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PORTRAITS OF THE BIG FOUR 
of the Peace Conference 



THE BIG FOUR 

And Others of the Peace Conference 



BY 
ROBERT LANSING 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
1921 






COPYRIGHT,I93t, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY ROBEKT LANSING 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



- 






CONTENTS 

PORTRAITS OF THE BIO FOUR 

Introduction 3 

I. Clemenceau 10 

II. Wilson 87 

III. Lloyd George 77 

IV. Orlando 104 

IMPRESSIONS OF OTHERS 

Impressions 137 

I. Venizelos 142 

II. Emir Feisul 161 

III. General Botha 178 

IV. Paderewski 197 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Big Four: Signor Orlando, Mr. Lloyd 
George, M. Clemenceau, and Mr. Wilson, 
with the Italian, British, and French 
Secretaries Frontispiece 

From a Photograph by the United States Signal Corps 

Georges Clemenceau 10 

Woodrow Wilson 88 

David Lloyd George 78 

Vittorio E. Orlando 104 

Eleftherios Venizelos 142 

Emir Feisul 162 

Louis Botha 178 

Ignace Jan Paderewski 198 



THE BIG FOUR 

And Others of the Peace Conference 



THE BIG FOUR 

And Others of the Peace Conference 

INTRODUCTION 

It is by no means an easy task to analyze and 
compare the characteristics of the four statesmen 
who were the leading figures in the Peace Con- 
ference at Paris, or to state without reservation 
the part which each played in the negotiations, 
the motives which inspired his actions, and the 
success or failure of his efforts. It is therefore 
with a measure of hesitation that I attempt to 
judge the personalities of the Big Four and to 
give to each his proper place of prominence in the 
proceedings of that great assembly of the masters 
of political thought. 

It is manifestly difficult to treat the subject 
impersonally and to avoid the petty influences 
which ought not to, but so often do, warp in- 
dividual opinion and a just appraisement of 
public men. Yet it cannot be denied that traits 
of character are as frequently shown by trivial 
incidents as by those of greater moment, though 

f S 1 



Introduction 

it is on the latter that popular reputations are 
founded. It is essential to a true estimate of a 
man's character to give a right valuation to the 
small as well as the great acts which go to make 
up his life. With a lively appreciation of the 
dangers of error, I enter upon the consideration 
of the characters of the Big Four. 

Until the President had been in Paris ten days, 
after his return from the United States, in the 
middle of March, 1919, the directing body of the 
Peace Conference — or, more correctly, the Con- 
ference on the Preliminaries of Peace — was the 
so-called Council of Ten, which, like the Supreme 
War Council, was composed of the heads of states 
and the secretaries and ministers of Foreign 
Affairs of the United States, Great Britain, 
France, and Italy, together with two Japanese 
statesmen of ambassadorial rank. After that 
time the Council of Ten was divided into two 
councils — the Council of the Heads of States, 
known also as the Council of Four, the Big Four, 
and, by some, as The Olympians; and the Council 
of Foreign Ministers, commonly called the Coun- 
cil of Five, or the Little Five — five, because 
one of the Japanese ambassadors was included. 
The latter Council w T as subordinate to, and sub- 

[ 4 ] 



Introduction 

ject to the direction of, the Council of the Heads 
of States. 

The Council of Ten consisted of Mr. Lloyd 
George and Mr. Balfour, M. Clemenceau and 
M. Pichon, Signor Orlando and Baron Sonnino, 
Baron Makino and Baron Matsui — or Viscount 
Chinda — and Mr. Wilson and myself. The 
Supreme War Council had the same membership, 
but had to do with the armistice and other 
matters of a military and naval character. 

Prior to the President's departure for the 
United States on February 14, 1919, the Supreme 
War Council and the Council of Ten met thirty- 
five times. During the month that the President 
was absent there were eighteen meetings, M. Tar- 
dieu attending four of them in place of M. Cle- 
menceau while the latter was recovering from 
the wound which he received from an anarchist's 
bullet. Lord Milner also had a seat in the Coun- 
cil, when Mr. Lloyd George was absent; and Mr. 
Henry White or Colonel Edward M. House sat 
as the second American member in the Council 
when the President was in the United States. 
After the President's return the Council of Ten 
met regularly seven times until, on March 24th, 
it was divided into two councils as I have stated. 

[ 5 ] 



Introduction 

Between that date and the President's final de- 
parture on June 28th there were six meetings of 
the Council of Ten; and up to my departure on 
July 12th, ten other meetings. I was therefore 
present at seventy-six meetings of the Council of 
Ten or ofj the same body sitting as the Supreme 
War Council. This gave me opportunity to 
become acquainted with the four heads of states 
and to gain some clear impressions as to their 
personal characteristics, their intellectual force, 
and their methods. 

Without disparaging the powers of observation 
of some who have undertaken to analyze or to 
delineate the characters of the Big Four, I cannot 
but feel amazement at" their emphatic state- 
ments, which, so far as actual knowledge is con- 
cerned, are based upon three or four casual 
interviews with these statesmen, and not upon 
frequent intercourse with them. Evidently such 
writers build their opinions chiefly on hear- 
say and very little on actual knowledge. It 
is manifest that their appreciation is super- 
ficial and should be so recognized by those 
who are critical in their study of personality. If 
the knowledge of these authors were equal 
to the positiveness of their assertions, their 

[6] 



Introduction 

word portraits would be almost priceless. The 
danger lies in the possibility that future genera- 
tions, assuming that their judgments are drawn 
from sufficient personal observations, may ac- 
cept their writings as true and accurate like- 
nesses of those whom they purport to describe, 
when, in fact, the prejudice and fancy of common 
gossip have much to do with their tone and 
color. In truth, the descriptions of these leaders 
at Paris which have appeared from time to time 
have been a chief inducement for me to write 
these sketches. 

In order that the comments upon the negotia- 
tions at Paris which appear in the succeeding 
pages may not be misconstrued, or relied upon 
to justify those who have opposed a speedy 
ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, it may be 
proper to say that, defective as the treaty is in 
certain particulars, nevertheless, considering that 
it had gone as far as it had and that the supreme 
need of the world was an immediate restoration 
of a state of peace, the situation demanded, in my 
judgment, its signature and should have secured 
its prompt ratification by the United States. To 
have declined to sign the treaty and by doing 
so to have delayed the peace would, as it seemed 

[ 7 J 



Introduction 

at the time, have jeopardized the political and 
social order in many European countries, and 
the same peril seemed to arise from the with- 
holding of senatorial consent to the ratification 
of the treaty. 

Whatever criticisms may be justly made of 
the conduct of the negotiations at Paris and how- 
ever sound may be some of the objections raised 
as to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, they 
appeared in the summer of 1919 insufficient 
grounds to warrant the refusal to sign or ratify 
the document. In 1919 there was an almost 
universal belief that a restoration of peace was 
imperative. It was then paramount to every 
other consideration. Even if American interests 
were adversely affected, the Constitution of the 
United States seemed to give ample protection 
from the treaty obligations which were con- 
sidered to be contrary to America's traditional 
policies. As President Wilson had definitely 
made up his mind not to accept any actual 
modifications of the articles in the treaty relating 
to the League of Nations, the only expedient 
course seemed to be to obtain ratification without 
change of the articles if peace was to be restored 
prior to 1920. 

[81 



Introduction 

When, however, the Senate declined to give 
its consent to ratification without substantial 
reservations, and when President Wilson de- 
clared that the covenant of the League of Na- 
tions should be made an issue in the presidential 
campaign of 1920 and that the election should be 
considered a solemn referendum of the people of 
the United States as to its acceptance, the chief 
argument for urging ratification without change 
disappeared. If peace was to be postponed until 
the popular will was expressed at the polls in 
November, 1920, then it was proper and advis- 
able to consider the rejection of the covenant or 
amendments and reservations to it which would 
cure its fundamental defects. With an immediate 
peace out of the question, revision of the articles 
seemed wise, as before their acceptance without 
revision had seemed wise and for the best in- 
terests of the nations. 



[9] 



CLEMENCEAU 

Of the four heads of states M. Clemenceau, the 
president of the Peace Conference, was, in my 
judgment, the dominant figure and the strongest 
man of the many strong men who participated 
in the negotiations at Paris. Possibly his age, 
which in no way impaired his keenness of wit or 
vigor of address, his long and turbulent political 
career, and the courage and firmness which he 
had shown during the perils of the German 
offensive in May, June, and July, 1918, had much 
to do with the impression which he made upon 
me. But without the background of accomplish- 
ment M. Clemenceau possessed a strength of 
character and a forcefulness which would have 
raised him above his colleagues. Persistent 
though patient, he was always ready, when the 
moment arrived, to use all his skill and cleverness 
in debate to obtain a decision which would be in 
the interest of his country. Every question was 
viewed by him in the light of how it would affect 
France. He was supremely nationalistic and 
interpreted international adjustments into na- 

[10 ] 




Lupyiiym uy nui i (6 a J^wtity 



[p^^\ 



Clemenceau 

tional terms. To advance French interests was 
his dominant purpose. 

When President Wilson arrived in France 
about the middle of December, 1918, and was 
everywhere received with unparalleled enthu- 
siasm by the people, who believed him to be the 
apostle of human rights and the uncompromising 
champion of a just peace, M. Clemenceau doubt- 
less witnessed the ovations accorded the Presi- 
dent with a measure of uncertainty as to the man 
who was thus idolized and who so manifestly had 
the confidence of the French people. Essentially 
practical, he looked forward, I imagine, to the 
time when these first outbursts of enthusiasm 
would subside and the popular mind would be- 
come more normal. The shrewd old statesman, 
familiar from' long experience with every phase 
of the emotional French nature, and knowing the 
impatience and instability of popular favor, must 
have realized that the American leader could not, 
unless he was indeed the superman many thought 
him to be, continue to hold the high place in 
public confidence which he had attained by his 
declarations as to the fundamentals of peace and 
by his spectacular arrival in Paris with the un- 
doubted purpose of forcing their acceptance. 

i n i 



Clemenceau 

Judging from the course of events it is not 
improbable that M. Clemenceau deliberately 
delayed organizing the work of the Conference 
until he had an opportunity to learn more of the 
character and ability of Mr. Wilson. He knew 
Mr. Lloyd George and Signor Orlando, but the 
President was practically unknown to him except 
through his public utterances. Possibly, too, he 
did not wish to have the Conference meet until 
the Supreme War Council met on January 11th 
to extend the armistice, as it would form an easy 
stepping-stone for him to assume a general direc- 
tion of the proceedings. 

It was not difficult to cause this delay, because 
the machinery for arranging the preliminaries 
was entirely in the hands of the French, as the 
meeting-place was Paris. It was a foregone con- 
clusion and in accord with international custom 
that the Secretary General and most of his active 
assistants would be French and that M. Clemen- 
ceau would be able through them to control the 
proceedings after the Conference was organized. 
The customary practice would have been for a 
Frenchman to preside over the Conference, but 
the presence of President Wilson as a delegate 
raised a question as to the propriety of any 

[ 12 1 



Clemenceau 

other than the President of the French Republic 
presiding, and under the system of responsible 
government in France M. Poincare was not ac- 
ceptable as a delegate, since he was not fully in 
harmony with the policies of the Clemenceau 
ministry. I have an impression that Mr. Wilson 
had the idea that he would be asked to preside 
over the Conference and act ex officio as chairman 
of the committee, commission, or council which 
would direct the proceedings. But if he was 
disappointed when this honor went to another, 
he never showed that he was, accepting the 
situation with perfect equanimity, and, in fact, 
nominating M. Clemenceau for the presidency. 
M. Clemenceau had at the outset perceived 
that if the President did not sit as a delegate, he 
would exercise a dominant influence over the 
negotiations and be in a measure the final arbiter 
of disputed questions. The natural step, there- 
fore, was to deprive the President of this superior 
position by inducing him to sit at the peace table 
as one of the American delegation, thereby 
putting him on the same level as the other heads 
of states present at the Conference. For two or 
three weeks after the Americans arrived in Paris, 
M. Clemenceau, aided by his colleagues, exerted 

[ 13 1 



Clemenceau 

his powers of persuasion to obtain the President's 
consent to act as a delegate. I do not know the 
arguments used or inducements offered, but, 
whatever they were, they succeeded, although 
the President remained long undecided, and ac- 
ceded, I believe, with hesitation, if not with re- 
luctance, to their wishes. 

Having persuaded the President to assume a 
position which placed him on a level with the 
premiers of the Entente Powers and entitled him 
to no greater consideration than they received in 
the conduct of the proceedings, M. Clemenceau 
could, according to international usage, become 
the President of the Conference. This he did 
with the same tact and shrewdness that he had 
shown in inducing the President to become a 
delegate* 

When it became necessary to arrange the terms 
for extending the armistice with Germany, which 
expired in January, the Supreme War Council 
was summoned to meet with the Military Coun- 
cil, on the 12th of the month, at the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs. Over this body M. Clemenceau 
had in the past presided, and he assumed the 
chair as a matter of course. When the terms of 
renewing the armistice were settled, questions 

[ 14 ] 



Clemenceau 

pertaining to the Conference were taken up and 
the number of delegates to be allotted to each 
country represented was determined, as well as 
the continued control of the proceedings by the 
Council. Thus without an interruption in the 
session, except by the withdrawal of the military 
chieftains, the Supreme War Council was convert- 
ed into the Council of Ten, and M. Clemenceau 
continued to preside without any question being 
raised as to the propriety of his doing so. In fact, 
no opportunity was offered to object had there 
been a disposition to make the subject an issue. 

But besides giving M. Clemenceau a superior 
place in directing the proceedings, this trans- 
formation of the War Council into the Council of 
Ten established the policy that the five principal 
Powers were to have directing control over the 
Conference and its deliberations. Thus the 
French Premier gained three points especially 
advantageous to his country: the oligarchy of 
the Five Powers, in which France would be in- 
fluential on account of her military strength; a 
dominant voice in the Council of Ten through 
the chairmanship; and direction of the pro- 
gramme and proceedings of the Conference and 
Council by means of the Secretariat General. 

[ 15 ] 



Clemenceau 

The calmness and ease with which M. Clemen- 
ceau carried through the plan to hold the 
management of the negotiations in his own hands 
and his skillful utilization of a unique state of 
affairs to that end suggest the movements of a 
well-oiled piece of machinery. Without noise and 
without apparent friction he assumed the chair- 
manship and subordinated the other heads of 
delegations to less prominent positions, and this 
in spite of the popular opinion as to the superior 
qualities of President Wilson and as to the place 
he should have in the assembled congress of 
the nations. 

Once in the saddle, Clemenceau, contrary to 
the public estimate of his nature, did not ride 
roughshod over his colleagues. As the presiding 
officer of the Council of Ten his conduct was 
urbane and considerate, although I cannot say 
the same of him when he presided over the Con- 
ference on the Preliminaries of Peace, a position 
which he assumed with the same assurance with 
which he had assumed the presidency of the 
Council. In dealing with the great body of 
delegates, which met usually in the Salle de 
l'Horloge of the Palace of the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs, he lived up to his reputation. He was, 

[ 16] 



Clemenceau 

in fact, utterly ruthless in pressing through the 
programme agreed upon by the Council of Ten. 
He swept aside objections and suppressed inter- 
ruptions with little regard for the speakers who 
dared to challenge his will. The way he forced 
business forward, ignoring or rebuking a delegate 
whom he thought opposed to the programme, re- 
minded one of the methods frequently employed 
at an American ward caucus a generation ago. 
His caustic sentences, his fluency of speech, in- 
creasing in vehemence as he proceeded, and his 
real or assumed passion simply overwhelmed 
protest and resistance. It was in such manifesta- 
tions of fiery temper and intensity of purpose 
that one understood how the old statesman had 
won his nom politique, Le Tigre. 

No one who attended a plenary session of the 
Conference on the Preliminaries of Peace can 
ever forget M. Clemenceau as he stood with head 
thrown back between his broad, humped shoul- 
ders, with the knuckles of his gray-gloved hands 
resting on the green table in front of him, and 
with his thick, shaggy brows drawn partially 
over his dark eyes, which fairly sparkled as he 
addressed the delegates. He usually began 
speaking in a deliberate and rather monotonous 

[ 17 ] 



Clemenceau 

voice, but with no hesitation or break in the even 
flow of his words. As he proceeded, he became 
more and more emphatic, while the rapidity of 
his utterance increased until it suggested the 
drumming of a machine gun. He had none of the 
arts of oratory, but his distinct and incisive 
delivery compelled attention if not applause. 
He seemed to hurl his words at his listeners. 
Only occasionally did he employ a gesture, but, 
when he did, it was vigorous and wholly French. 
Having finished a forceful address, he either 
sank back panting into his great golden chair, or, 
if he desired to check further debate, he would 
state the resolution or decision agreed upon by 
the Council of Ten before the session, and with- 
out a moment's delay exclaim, "Adopte." He 
would then, before any one could interrupt, take 
up the next item on the agenda, or else add, 
"Ajourne." 

Free debate and actual voting by the delegates 
had no place in the proceedings with M. Clemen- 
ceau in the chair. There was an occasional 
attempt at discussion, but the Clemenceau 
method discouraged it. After listening with a 
tolerant manner and with his half-closed eyes 
turned toward the ceiling, the old French auto- 

[ 18 ] 



Clemenceau 

crat would slowly rise from his chair, glare 
fiercely about the room as if to say, " We have 
had enough of this," and ask whether any one 
else desired to speak; and then, before another 
delegate could collect his wits and get to his feet, 
he would snap out the inevitable "Adopts." 
That always ended it. 

This procedure was the easier because the 
assembled delegates knew that the proposed 
measures which appeared on the agenda or were 
read by the President of the Conference or the 
Secretary General had been considered and ap- 
proved by the Council of Ten before being sub- 
mitted. In the face of this united approval of the 
Five Great Powers opposition crumbled. The 
possibility of offending the ruling oligarchy or the 
futility of attempting to reverse their decisions 
caused most of the delegates to remain silent. A 
few, more courageous than their fellows, such as 
Hymans, of Belgium, Bratiano, of Rumania, and 
Hughes, of Australia, dared to speak their minds 
until the Old Tiger showed his teeth and growled 
out, il Adopte. y ' Then they, too, succumbed. 

Altogether a plenary session of the Conference 
on the Preliminaries of Peace was a farce. It was 
never a deliberative assembly which reached an 

[ 19 ] 



Clemenceau 

agreement by a frank exchange of views. The 
delegates were called together to listen, not to 
criticize or object, to the programme of the Coun- 
cil of Ten. They were there to go through the 
formality of registering their approval, whatever 
their real opinions might be. It was medieval 
rather than modern; despotic rather than demo- 
cratic. It was in one sense a farce, but in another 
it was a tragedy. 

To carry through a proceeding of this sort 
required a masterful man like M. Clemenceau. 
President Wilson could never have done it. Even 
his nature, which resents opposition, would have 
found such methods repugnant to his sense of 
right and fair play. I doubt if Mr. Lloyd George 
could have done it. But M. Clemenceau suffered 
from no qualms of indecision. His fixed deter- 
mination and driving force were just the qualities 
needful to crush opposition and to compel sub- 
mission. He drove toward the goal, heedless 
of the obstacles in the way, and supremely con- 
fident in his ability to attain the object sought. 
These were the characteristics which made him 
the great War Minister of France even when the 
German hosts, flushed with successes, were 
sweeping toward Paris. These were the eharac- 

[ 20 ] 



Clemenceau 

teristics which gained him the applause of the 
world and the adoration of the French people. 
It is no exaggeration to say that in the dark days 
of 1918 the indomitable courage and stern will 
of M. Clemenceau were the greatest assets of 
France, for the fire of his spirit ran through the 
nation, inspiring confidence and determination. 
But these characteristics, of so great value during 
the war, were the ones which he unfortunately 
employed as President of the Conference. They 
succeeded, but the success was at a sacrifice 
which was far too great. 

M. Clemenceau, the believer in the primacy of 
the Great Powers, which he succeeded in putting 
into practical operation in the Council of Ten, 
and even more completely in the Council of Four, 
saw with satisfaction the same idea perpetuated 
in the Council of the League of Nations. To 
be the executive of such an oligarchy in the Peace 
Conference he was specially equipped by experi- 
ence, by temperament, and by resourcefulness. 
His nature was that of a despot. 

I imagine that he viewed the sessions of the 
Conference as expedient in order to satisfy the 
sentimental idea that every nation which had 
actually participated in the war against Germany 

[21 1 



Clemenceau 

should have a voice in making peace, but he de- 
termined that the voices of the small belligerents 
should be merely echoes of the expressed will of 
the Great Powers. He manifestly believed that 
those who possessed the superior military and 
naval strength had the sole right to make peace 
with the Central Alliance. He did not propose to 
hazard the interests of France by submitting 
the treaty terms to the body of delegates for 
decision. Having won the war, he did not intend 
to have France lose the peace. 

Skeptical as M. Clemenceau seemed to be of 
the actual force of moral obligation and of ab- 
stract justice in international relations, he con- 
ceived that the practical way was for the five 
principal Powers to take and keep entire con- 
trol of the negotiations and to perpetuate their 
control by means of a concert of the Great 
Powers, or, if it made any one happier, by a 
Council of a League of Nations, which was the 
same thing if it recognized the primacy of the 
Five Powers. In my judgment that is what 
M. Clemenceau sought from the beginning, and 
that is what he obtained. Less far-seeing than he 
and less appreciative of the great advantages to 
France of the creation of such an oligarchy, the 

[ 22 ] 



Clemenceau 

military element in France, led by Marshal Foch 
and his political friends, were insistent on making 
the Rhine the boundary with Germany, the Mar- 
shal even going so far as to denounce the treaty 
in a plenary session because this provision was 
not included. But M. Clemenceau knew that the 
unity of the Great Powers was a stronger protec- 
tion to his country than the military occupation 
of territory whose inhabitants would remain 
hostile and seek the first opportunity to throw off 
the yoke of French sovereignty. He knew that 
if he insisted on the Foch programme it would 
result in the loss of the unity which he desired 
and would greatly weaken the influence of France 
in the Council of the Powers. Wisdom and ex- 
pediency from the French point of view endorsed 
the course taken by the French Premier. He 
endeavored nevertheless to remove all popular 
opposition aroused by the militarists by nego- 
tiating treaties of protective alliance with the 
United States and Great Britain, but in this he 
was only partially successful, as the extreme 
militarists continued their demand for the cession 
of the territory west of the Rhine in spite of the 
treaties. 

It is not my purpose to repeat the opinions of 
[ 23 1 



Clemenceau 

the delegates of small nations concerning the 
organization and procedure of the Peace Con- 
ference and the way M. Clemenceau conducted 
the plenary sessions. It is enough to say that 
they were astonished, indignant, and depressed 
at their treatment, but dared not publicly com- 
plain of their wrongs, though in private their 
bitterness was expressed in strong terms. The 
invectives were chiefly directed against M. Cle- 
menceau because of his " brutal and unheard- 
of conduct " as President of the Conference, 
though they must have known that he was only 
the instrument of the arbitrary power which had 
been taken over by the Councils. The resentment 
of the delegates increased as weeks lengthened 
into months while they sat idly cooling their heels 
and awaiting the decrees of the Great Powers. 
Having no alternative they assented when they 
were told to assent, and they also signed when 
they were directed to sign, the Chinese delegates 
alone refusing to place their signatures to the 
treaty of peace. It was a succession of humilia- 
tions for the independent states, whose delegates 
sat at the peace table presumably to register the 
sovereign wills of their respective nations, but 
in fact to obey the commands of the Great Pow- 

[ 24 ] 






Clemenceau 

ers under the direction of the forceful old states- 
man of France. It is true that these nations were 
represented on various commissions, but the com- 
missions possessed no authority to decide a ques- 
tion. That authority rested with the Councils. 

But Clemenceau presiding over the Council of 
Ten was a different Clemenceau from him who 
presided over the plenary sessions of the Confer- 
ence on the Preliminaries of Peace. The Council, 
except on rare occasions when there were a great 
number of military and naval experts present, 
met in the room occupied as an office by 
M. Pichon, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
On the south side of this room wide windows, 
extending from the floor to the lofty ceiling, 
looked out upon the trees and shrubbery of a 
small court. The three other sides were cov- 
ered above the dark wainscoting with richly 
colored tapestries, which in allegory portrayed 
events in the life of Henry IV. In the center of 
the north side two sets of double doors opened 
into one of the large antechambers facing the 
Quai d'Orsay. The doors on the inside of the 
thick wall were connected by brass rods with 
corresponding doors on the outer side, so that 
the two opened together. When they were closed, 

[ 25 J 



Clemenceau 

M. Pichon's room was practically sound-proof. 
The council chamber was approximately thirty 
feet from east to west and over twenty feet wide. 
Near the western end and several feet from a 
handsome fireplace, in which a wood fire blazed 
on cold days, was M. Pichon's ornate desk, or 
rather table. At this sat M. Clemenceau in a low- 
backed armchair. Behind him Professor Man- 
toux, the gifted interpreter of the Conference, 
sat at a small table. Near Professor Mantoux 
and toward the south side of the room sat 
M. Pichon in a high-backed armchair. Along the 
south side of the room were the other members 
of the Council, with their backs to the windows, 
arranged in the following order — the Americans, 
the British, the Italians, and the Japanese. 
They sat in great chairs similar to that occupied 
by M. Pichon, and had in front of them small 
tables for their papers and maps. Behind the 
members of the Council, in the embrasures of the 
windows and also along the east side of the room, 
were their secretaries and the expert advisers 
whom they had asked to attend the session. On 
the north side near the western end of the room 
sat M. Dutasta, the Secretary General, and three 
or four French assistants. Also on the north side 

[ 26 1 



Clemenceau 

close to the entrance doors were chairs for 
delegates, commissioners, and other persons who 
might be summoned to present their cases or 
make their reports to the Council. As a rule from 
twenty to thirty-five people were present at each 
session, though on occasions all retired except 
the ten members. 

This is a rude picture of the place of meeting 
of the Council of Ten over which M. Clemenceau 
presided. But, as I said, he was a different man 
from the man who directed the proceedings of a 
plenary session. Within the council chamber his 
domineering manner, his brusqueness of speech, 
and his driving methods of conducting business 
disappeared. He showed patience and considera- 
tion toward his colleagues and seldom spoke until 
the others had expressed their views. It was only 
on rare occasions that he abandoned his suavity 
of address and allowed his emotions to affect his 
utterances. It was then only that one caught a 
glimpse of the ferocity of The Tiger. But these 
incidents were very unusual, as M. Clemenceau 
was generally conciliatory and disposed to find 
some common ground for compromise. His 
manifest purpose was to obtain unanimity by 
mutual concessions. 

[ 27 J 



Clemenceau 

After a long debate, in which several members 
of the Council had taken part, M. Clemenceau 
would turn to the one who had offered the 
original proposal and ask expectantly in English, 
"Do you agree? " If the proposer showed that 
he was not satisfied, M. Clemenceau would gaze 
at the ceiling and patiently listen to further dis- 
cussion. If it became apparent that no agree- 
ment could be reached, he would ask for sugges- 
tions as to the course to be taken. If, however, 
the author of the proposal was satisfied with the 
changes offered in debate, M. Clemenceau would 
put the same question to others who had taken 
part in the discussion, and if no objection was 
raised his face would light up and he would 
exclaim, "Bien! C'est adcrpU." It was then the 
duty of the Secretary General and the secretaries 
of the delegations to reduce the final decision to 
writing, by no means an easy task if it was a 
patchwork of debate. 

The proceedings of the Council of Ten were 
very informal, although an official agenda was 
prepared for each session, nominally by the 
secretaries acting together, though in fact it was 
done by M. Dutasta in consultation with officials 
of the French Foreign Office. Thus M. Clemen- 

[ 28 ] 



Clemenceau 

ceau and his advisers substantially regulated 
the subjects discussed by the Council of Ten. 
The truth is that the agenda seldom reached the 
members of the Council long enough before the 
session for them to study thoroughly or in detail 
the subjects listed for discussion. Naturally this 
gave a decided advantage to the French, who 
included in the agenda only subjects which they 
were fully prepared to discuss. It was practically 
impossible to have placed on the agenda a sub- 
ject which officials of the French Foreign Office 
were not ready to consider or which they believed 
it would be for the interests of France to postpone 
until certain other matters had been decided. 

Of course M. Clemenceau, alive to everything 
which worked to the advantage of France and 
skillful in handling situations of all sorts, 
succeeded in carrying through the French pro- 
gramme; and he did it without exciting opposi- 
tion among his colleagues. They might and, in a 
few cases, did grumble and complain outside the 
Council as to the way matters were being 
handled, but in M. Pichon's room the suavity, 
good nature, and unfailing courtesy of The Tiger 
silenced those who were dissatisfied. In the 
endeavor to match the shrewd old statesman in 

I 29 ] 



Clemenceau 

politeness and geniality they failed to use these 
qualities in the way that he did. He used them 
to disarm his opponents and prevent vigorous 
objection. His colleagues used them to soften 
the blows which they intended to deliver. 
M. Clemenceau won. 

As a master of the fine art of flattery none 
could equal the French Premier. It was interest- 
ing to see how accurately he estimated the per- 
sonal peculiarities of his colleagues and how 
tactfully he regulated his intercourse accordingly. 
With President Wilson he was, at least in the 
Council of Ten, politely deferential, but never 
subservient; with Mr. Lloyd George he showed 
his wit and sometimes his sarcasm; with the 
Italians he was cynical and caustic and not in- 
frequently vehement; and with the Japanese, 
indifferent or patiently tolerant. He had read 
with remarkable keenness the temperament and 
the characteristics of each, and seemed to under- 
stand the best way to deal with each one. 

The personality of M. Clemenceau was dis- 
tinctly attractive. His genial friendliness, his 
mental alertness, and his sparkling wit made him 
always an agreeable companion and an interest- 
ing conversationalist. It is true that his wit was 

[ 30 ] 



Clemenccau 

sometimes biting and cruel. He did not check 
his fondness for uttering clever sayings because 
they conveyed unpleasant truths or wounded 
the sensibilities of those at whom they were 
directed. But he was always careful to avoid 
offending one whose power he recognized or 
whose favor he sought. President Wilson, for 
example, was never in my presence a target for 
his sarcastic remarks, while his own officials and 
military advisers, even Marshal Foch, were often 
the subjects of jests and rebukes which, delivered 
before the Council, caused them exceeding 
mortification and invited in some cases angry 
retorts. He was at times so harsh and sarcastic 
in his language that his listeners felt incensed 
that he took an occasion when they were present 
to humiliate his subordinates. 

Yet in spite of these exhibitions of temper, 
embarrassing as they were, one could not but 
admire the sturdy old veteran, whose political 
life had been one of continual tumult and strife. 
No public man in France had had so stormy a 
career as he. He had not won his high place by 
making friends with politicians; he had won it 
by trampling down his enemies. He did not owe 
his success to a political party or to a faction; he 

[ 31 1 



Clemenceau 

owed it to compelling recognition of his personal 
strength and ability. He simply reveled in the 
struggles in which he was constantly engaged to 
maintain his position. He never hesitated to pick 
up a gage of battle, and he entered the conflict 
with all the vigor of youth and all the sagacity 
of age. 

Whatever may be thought of M. Clemenceau' s 
policies and methods, it is impossible to deny 
tribute to his indomitable will and his unwaver- 
ing optimism as he stood alone and defiant during 
many of the crises which he as Premier was called 
upon to face. Even those who disliked him in- 
tensely could not refuse him unwilling praise for 
his devotion and service to France, while the 
enthusiastic shouts of "Clemenceau! Clemen- 
ceau ! " whenever he appeared in public, testified 
to a popularity which silenced his enemies and 
made his premiership secure. 

I cannot better describe M. Clemenceau's 
personal appearance than to say that he sug- 
gested in face and figure a Chinese mandarin of 
the old empire. I say this with all respect for the 
man whom I would describe. He had the sallow 
complexion, the prominent high cheek-bones, the 
massive forehead with protuberant brows, the 

[ 32 ] 



Clemenccau 

slant of the dark eyes, the long, down-curving 
gray mustache, the short neck, the broad, 
rounded shoulders, and the bulky body. As he 
sat in the council chamber with his clenched 
gloved hands resting on the arms of his chair, his 
eyes with their raised brows and heavy, drooping 
lids, and his features immobile and expression- 
less, he might have been the model for a bronze 
Chinese statue of Buddha. He was a striking 
type, indicative of intellectual force, of self- 
mastery, and of cold, merciless will power. 
Massive, Mongolian, and impassive, he watched 
the course of events with Oriental stoicism and 
calculated with the unerring instinct of the West- 
ern mind where lay the interests of France, to 
which his thought and energies were consecrated. 
It is not strange or doubtful, when one dissects 
the character of this remarkable man, that he 
dominated the Peace Conference and the Coun- 
cils at Paris. He possessed the essential qualities 
of great leadership. He knew when to be defiant 
and when to placate. He was preeminently 
practical and material. He was cynical of the 
real value of the idealism which had been so 
widely applauded and which many of the dele- 
gates supported with enthusiasm so long as it did 

[ 33 ] 



Clemenceau 

not interfere with the material interests of their 
countries. He tolerated these ideals because it 
was the expedient thing to do. He showed, in 
what he sought and in what he accomplished 
rather than in what he said, that he believed that 
selfishness was the supreme impulse with nations 
as with individuals, and that it was the only real 
factor to be reckoned with. Altruism was well 
enough to talk about because it was pleasing to 
some people, but to construct international so- 
ciety on such a foundation was to deny human 
nature. He was in no sense a visionary. 

The League of Nations to M. Clemenceau — if 
I read his mind correctly — was a Utopian dream 
of impractical theorists, until a concert of the 
Great Powers was incorporated in the covenant 
and the United States and Great Britain agreed 
to enter into treaties to come to the aid of France 
in the event that Germany should again attack 
her. From the time that these treaties of protec- 
tion were arranged, and his country had no 
longer to depend for its security upon the un- 
certain guaranty of the covenant, M. Clemen- 
ceau supported, or rather did not oppose, the 
League of Nations. He probably thought that it 
might have some practical uses in carrying out 

[ 34 1 



Clemenceau 

the terms of the treaty. If the authors and 
sponsors wished to try out their theory, he had 
no objections, provided there was nothing in the 
covenant which weakened or lessened the ma- 
terial advantages obtained for France in the terms 
of the peace. 

He watched calmly and with little comment 
the formulation of the League by the Commission 
on the League of Nations, over which President 
Wilson presided, but I imagine that he did so 
with a scornful cynicism for the work of those 
who, he doubtless thought, were wasting their 
time on a dream. Had the authors of the cov- 
enant attempted, however, to modify his pur- 
poses, there can be little doubt that there would 
have been an explosion and the covenant would 
have had a difficult road to travel before it was 
accepted. 

His fixity of purpose, his practicality, his 
tolerance of harmless altruism, his mental vital- 
ity and keenness of perception, together with 
the other traits of character to which I have re- 
ferred, made M. Clemenceau the most influential 
personality in the Paris Conference. He suc- 
ceeded in nearly everything that he undertook. 
When it made no difference to France or to 

[ 35 ] 



Clemenceau 

French interests, he might argue and debate and 
finally give up the point; but if the real interests 
of France, as he saw them, were in the slightest 
degree affected, he never surrendered. His 
patriotism like his materialism was extreme. No 
one can honestly deny the superior influence 
which the rugged old statesman exerted from 
first to last over his distinguished confreres. 



[ 36 ] 



II 

WILSON 

For obvious reasons it is harder for me to analyze 
the character of President Wilson as manifested 
in his conduct at Paris than it is the character 
of any one of his colleagues in the Council of the 
Heads of States. It was only as I reviewed the 
results of the negotiations that I came to a 
realization of the difficulty, if not the impossibil- 
ity, of harmonizing his avowed intentions with 
what seemed to satisfy him. As a consequence, in 
a character study of this sort, the facts do not 
always seem to justify the conclusions. Then, 
too, opinion is often based on deductions which 
depend more upon impressions than on direct 
evidence. I may have drawn erroneous conclu- 
sions and may therefore be wrong in my judg- 
ments; that I am willing to admit; but it is my 
earnest purpose to be entirely impartial and to 
avoid any personal bias in the discussion of a 
man with whom I was so long and so closely 
associated. 

A real difficulty in portraying President Wilson 
f 37 1 



Wilson 

as he was in Paris is that certain traits of his 
character, which had been so prominent in his 
public career prior to that time, seem to have 
been suppressed or submerged in the new 
environment. Whether this was intentional or 
involuntary I do not know; and really it makes 
no difference. The fact is that the President 
appeared changed after he landed in France. 
Clearly it is difficult not to be unconsciously 
influenced by impressions gained prior to the 
Paris days and not to weave those memories 
into an estimate of Mr. Wilson when he was 
engaged in the task of negotiating the terms of 
the treaty of peace with Germany. 

It is not my purpose to discuss the wisdom of 
the President's attending the Peace Conference 
and of conducting in person the negotiations. As 
to that there will always be, I presume, a diver- 
gence of opinion. There are valid arguments on 
both sides of the question. I can only say that 
the day after the armistice was signed, I had a 
conference with the President in his study at the 
White House, during which I took occasion to 
tell him that in my judgment it would be a 
serious mistake for him to sit at the peace table, 
and I went fully into my reasons for so advising 

[ 38 1 



Wilson 

hiin. Six days later — November 18, 1918 — the 
President came to my residence and told me that, 
after considering the matter very carefully, he 
had determined to go to the Conference, and had 
given out a public announcement of his intention. 
My judgment as to the President's personal par- 
ticipation in the negotiations and his absence 
from the United States for so long a period is the 
same now as it was the day I expressed it. I 
leave others to decide how far it has been justified 
by subsequent events. At the same time I wish 
to show that the President's decision to exercise 
in person his constitutional right to conduct the 
foreign affairs of the United States was not the 
result of impulse, but was reached after thought- 
ful deliberation, and doubtless the manifesta- 
tions of approval by the French people of his 
presence at Paris convinced him that he had 
decided wisely. 

No man ever received a more demonstrative 
welcome than did Mr. Wilson from the moment 
that the George Washington entered the harbor 
of Brest. It was a great popular ovation. His 
name was on every lip; throngs of admirers 
applauded him as he entered the special train for 
Paris, and at the stations en route; and multi- 

[ 39 ] 



Wilson 

tudes, delirious with enthusiasm, cheered him a 
welcome as he drove through the beflagged 
streets of the French capital in company with 
President Poincare, who met him at the Gare du 
Bois de Boulogne. It was a reception which 
might have turned the head of a man far less 
responsive than the President was to public ap- 
plause, and have given him an exalted opinion 
of his own power of accomplishment and of his 
individual responsibility to mankind. It is fair, 
I think, to assume that this was the effect on 
the President. It was the natural one. 

This convincing evidence of his personal popu- 
larity, which was vastly increased by his sub- 
sequent visits to London and Rome, doubtless 
confirmed him in the belief that, with the people 
of the three principal Allied Powers so unani- 
mously behind him, the statesmen of those 
countries would hardly dare to oppose his ideas 
as to the terms of peace. I think that there were 
ample grounds for this belief. 

The trouble was that the President was not 
prepared to seize the opportunity and to capital- 
ize this general popular support. He came to 
Paris without, so far as I know, a definite outline 
of a treaty with Germany. He did have a draft 

[ 40 ] 



Wilson 

of a covenant of a league of nations, but it was 
a crude and undigested plan, as is evident by a 
comparison of it with the document finally re- 
ported to the Conference on the Preliminaries of 
Peace. He, of course, had his famous Fourteen 
Points, and the declarations appearing in his 
subsequent addresses as bases of the peace, but 
they were little more than a series of principles 
and policies to guide in the drafting of actual 
terms. As to a complete projct, or even an out- 
line of terms which could be laid before the 
delegates for consideration, he apparently had 
none; in fact when this lack was felt by members 
of the American Commission they undertook 
to have their legal advisers prepare a skeleton 
treaty, but had to abandon the work after it was 
well under way because the President resented 
the idea, asserting emphatically that he did not 
intend to allow lawyers to draw the treaty, a 
declaration that discouraged those of the pro- 
fession from volunteering suggestions as to the 
covenant and other articles of the treaty. The 
President, not having done the preliminary work 
himself, and unwilling to have others do it, was 
wholly unprepared to submit anything in con- 
crete form to the European statesmen, unless 

[41 ] 



Wilson 

it was his imperfect plan for a league of nations. 
The consequence was that the general scheme of 
the treaty and many of the important articles 
were prepared and worked out by the British 
and French delegations. Thus the exceptional 
opportunity which the President had to impress 
his ideas on the Conference, and to lead in the 
negotiations, was lost, and he failed to maintain 
his controlling position among the statesmen who 
were, as it turned out, to dictate the terms of 
peace; while his utterances, which had been the 
foundation of his popularity, suffered in a meas- 
ure the same fate. 

If the President had adopted the customary 
method of negotiation through commissioners 
instead of pursuing the unusual and in fact un- 
tried method of personal participation, the 
situation would have been very different. With- 
out the President present in Paris detailed in- 
structions would have been prepared, which 
could have been modified during the negotiations 
only by reference to him at Washington. In- 
structions of that sort would of necessity have 
been definite. There would have been no uncer- 
tainty as to the objects sought. But with the 
President on the ground written instructions 

[ 42 ] 



Wilson 

seemed to him, and possibly were, superfluous. 
He was there to decide the attitude of the United 
States and to give oral directions concerning the 
minutest detail of the negotiations as the ques- 
tions arose; and since diplomatic commissioners 
are in any event only agents of the President and 
subject always to his instructions, the American 
commissioners at Paris possessed no right to act 
independently or to do other than follow the 
directions which they received, which in this case 
were given by word of mouth. As these direc- 
tions were meager and indefinite, and as they 
did not include a general plan, the situation was 
unsatisfactory and embarrassing for the Presi- 
dent's American colleagues. 

I doubt if Mr. Wilson had worked out, even 
tentatively, the application of the principles and 
precepts which he had declared while the war 
was in progress, and which had been generally 
accepted at the time of the armistice as the bases 
of peace. The consequence was that he must 
have had a very vague and nebulous scheme for 
their introduction into the treaty, because many 
of his declarations required accurate definition 
before they could be practically applied to the 
problems which awaited solution by the Con- 

[43J 



Wilson 

ference. Naturally there was an atmosphere 
of uncertainty and a feeling of helplessness in 
approaching the treaty terms which prevented 
the American commissioners from pressing for 
definite objects. The whole delegation, the 
President included, lost prestige and influence 
with the foreign delegates by this lack of a 
programme. 

Here is shown one of the inherent weaknesses 
of Mr. Wilson which impaired his capacity as the 
head of a diplomatic commission to negotiate 
so intricate a settlement as the treaty with 
Germany. ' He was inclined to let matters drift, 
relying apparently on his own quickness of 
perception and his own sagacity to defeat or 
amend terms proposed by members of other 
delegations. From first to last there was no 
teamwork, no common counsel, and no concerted 
action. It was discouraging to witness this utter 
lack of system, when system was so essential. 
The reason was manifest. There was no directing 
head to the American Commission to formulate 
a plan, to organize the work and to issue definite 
instructions. 

It is my belief that this fault in the conduct of 
the negotiations, so far as the United States is 

[ 44 ] 



Wilson 

concerned, was responsible in no small degree for 
some of the more undesirable settlements which 
were incorporated in the treaty of peace. The 
other heads of states held long daily conferences 
with their fellow commissioners and principal 
expert advisers, at which pending questions were 
debated at length and opinions were freely ex- 
pressed as to the attitude which should be as- 
sumed in view of the national interests involved. 
Not so the President. He seldom met the Ameri- 
can commissioners as a body — in fact, only nine 
times prior to his first return to the United States 
on February 14th — and then, except in regard to 
the covenant, the discussions were desultory and 
of a general character except on two or three 
occasions. The President at these meetings did 
most of the talking, seldom asking advice. They 
left an impression of doubt as to just what he was 
seeking to obtain. They might have been, but 
were not, useful. During the entire period of the 
negotiations President Wilson summoned the 
i experts to meet as a body with the American 
Commission only once, on June 3d, when the 
German and Austrian treaties were completed. 

The President's method of utilizing the knowl- 
edge of others was this: If he wished advice he 

[ 45 ] 



Wilson 

called on the individual whom he thought espe- 
cially qualified to give it — though he sometimes 
erred in his choice — and discussed the subject 
with him in a private interview, or else he asked 
the expert to prepare for him a confidential 
memorandum. The result of the interview the 
President did not disclose, but the commissioners 
sometimes obtained from the adviser an oral 
account of what took place or a copy of the 
memorandum which he had furnished. There 
was, therefore, no consensus of opinion by the 
commission, and no general discussion of a 
question. The President, in fact, constituted 
himself an exclusive repository of all information, 
opinions, and speculations, to which no one else 
had access. It was entirely a personal matter 
with him. It seems to me to be a fair assumption 
that he argued that, a|Jhe alone had the respon- 
sibility under the Constitution, it was for him to 
make up his mind independently as to the course 
which should be taken, and that it was time 
enough to tell the other American commissioners 
what that course would be after he had deter- 
mined it. Unfortunately, he did not always 
disclose his decision even when he reached one, 
though on more than one occasion he seemed 

[46 ] 



Wilson 

surprised that his colleagues were ignorant of his 
views, which they could have gained only by 
intuition or in some cases by deduction. 

The aloofness of Mr. Wilson, his apparent dis- 
like for consultations until circumstances made 
them unavoidable, and his manifest desire and 
purpose to remain isolated were not new traits in 
his character. They had been recognized and not 
infrequently commented upon long before we 
went to Paris, but the circumstances surrounding 
an international conference of such magnitude as 
the Peace Conference and the imperative need of 
close personal intercourse between associates in 
the conduct of the negotiations emphasized these 
peculiarities of the President's nature and seri- 
ously handicapped the activities of the American 
commissioners. ' 

The foregoing consideration of the President's 
relations to the other American commissioners 
explains in a large measure the reason for his 
failure to retain the first place in the Conference, 
which he undoubtedly held when he first arrived 
in France. He was unable to avail himself of the 
opportunity offered by his unique position be- 
cause of this defect in his mental attitude toward 
cooperation. Though he frequently sought the 

[47 1 



Wilson 

advice of Colonel House, at least during the early 
stages of the negotiations, he remained a solitary 
and secluded man, preferring to bear his burdens 
alone. 

The consequences were those which might 
have been expected. M. Clemenceau, and in a 
lesser degree Mr. Lloyd George, took the initia- 
tive on practically all subjects requiring settle- 
ment except as to those before commissions of the 
Conference, and even in the case of the Com- 
mission on the League of Nations, of which the 
President was the presiding officer, the initiative 
apparently passed from him to General Smuts 
and Lord Robert Cecil. Thus the United States 
was forced into the position of following instead 
of leading in the drafting of the terms formulated 
in the Council of Four, a position which was as 
unnecessary as it was unfortunate. 

There can be little doubt that President 
Wilson expected to find in the principal states- 
men of Europe, at least in a measure, the same 
philanthropic and altruistic motives which he 
possessed to so high a degree. In the correspond- 
ence during the war the Allies had responded to 
his appeals and declarations in a tone of lofty 
idealism similar to that which he had used. I 

[48 J 



Wilson 

believe that he assumed that moral right would 
be the controlling factor in the settlements at 
Paris, and that even the enemy would be treated 
fairly, if not generously, in order that the peace 
might be erected on permanent foundations. 
Entertaining idealistic motives and unfortu- 
nately lacking practical experience in international 
negotiations, the President did not appear to 
appreciate at the first that the aims of his foreign 
colleagues were essentially material or to realize 
that their expressions of high principle were 
merely an assent to a moral standard which they 
thought basicly right, but at present impractica- 
ble. The result was that he assented to certain 
arrangements before he became aware of the 
selfishness, if not the greed, which was so evi- 
dently a frequent impulse of many of the Euro- 
pean delegates in formulating their demands or 
supporting those of others. Having once passed 
his word in regard to a decision, his high sense of 
honor or possibly an unwillingness to admit his 
error prevented him from withdrawing it. 

Obsessed with the idea that the organization 
of a league of nations was the supreme object to 
be attained at the Paris Conference, the Presi- 
dent devoted his time, his effort, and his influence 

[ 49 1 



Wilson 

to drafting its charter and removing or neutraliz- 
ing the objections which stood in the way of its 
acceptance. At the first he conferred with the 
other American commissioners in regard to the 
covenant, but on finding them, except possibly 
Colonel House, more or less skeptical as to the 
practical operation of the organization which he 
had planned in collaboration with Lord Robert 
Cecil and General Smuts, and disposed to offer 
suggestions materially modifying the plan, he 
showed that he preferred only the cooperation of 
those who unreservedly believed in his draft. It 
was very apparent that he did not desire counsel 
and criticism, but approval and commendation 
of the covenant. It was unfortunate for the 
President and for the League that he took this 
attitude, as subsequent events proved. 

As the leaders of the Allied Powers, with their 
practical ideas, came to a realization of the situ- 
ation and saw that the President was willing to 
concede much in exchange for support of the 
covenant, they utilized his supreme desire to ob- 
tain by barter material advantages for their own 
nations. From the results of the negotiations it 
may be deduced that by clever representations 
they gained concession after concession. The 

[ 50 ] 



Wilson 

apparent support of the idealism of the President 
by these statesmen was in my opinion chiefly for 
a purpose and not out of conviction. They loudly 
applauded the President's declarations of prin- 
ciple as the just bases of peace, but they never 
once attempted to apply them unless their own 
national interests were advanced. They praised 
the covenant as a wonderful document, as the 
Magna Charta of the world, as an eternal 
memorial to its author, and they subtly flattered 
the President by confiding to the League every 
question which could not be immediately solved, v 
ostensibly to show their faith in the proposed 
organization, but really to postpone the settle- 
ment of dangerous disputes. 

M. Clemenceau, who had frankly declared in 
favor of the doctrine of the balance of power, was 
satisfied with either General Smuts's plan or that 
of Lord Robert Cecil, since both provided for the 
perpetuation of the Supreme War Council as the 
Council of the League and for the recognition of 
the primacy of the Great Powers over all in- 
ternational affairs for the future. Mr. Lloyd 
George, provided the colonial ambitions and 
commercial interests of the British Empire were 
satisfied before the guaranty of the covenant 

[51 ] 



Wilson 

became operative, complacently gave his support 
to the document as a means of making more 
permanent British possession of the ceded ter- 
ritories. Signor Orlando, assured of the dis- 
memberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire 
and the resulting delivery into the hands of Italy 
of the economic life of German Austria, and hope- 
ful of being given substantial control of the 
Adriatic, and confident of obtaining sovereignty 
over the Tyrol by insisting on the fulfillment of 
the Pact of London, rejoiced in a guaranty which 
seemed to ensure, for a time at least, the widened 
boundaries of Italy. The Japanese were equally 
willing to unite in a mutual guaranty on con- 
dition that their country obtained and was 
protected in the possession of the German rights 
in Shantung and in its sovereignty over the 
German islands in the Pacific Ocean north of 
the equator, though I am convinced that Japan 
would never have withdrawn from the Confer- 
ence or abandoned her position as one of the Five 
I Great Powers, whatever disposition had been 
I made of her claims. 

While selfish interest undoubtedly impelled 
the principal Allied Powers to adhere to the 
covenant and to become members of the League 

[52] 



Wilson 

of Nations, the United States was free from 
such influences. It had no territorial or trade 
ambitions to advance. The American people 
desired a just peace because it would remove 
causes for war; they desired the creation, of 
an international organization which would at 
least hinder, if it could not actually prevent, 
future wars. 

The ideas of the President, when he left the 
United States in December, 1918, were undoubt- 
edly in general accord with the thought and 
desire of the majority of his countrymen as to 
the terms of peace. I do not mean that his plan 
for a league of nations, which he carried with 
him, but which he had not then made public, was 
in accord with that thought and desire. It may 
have been or it may not have been. No one can 
tell as to that. But I believe that nearly all 
Americans hoped and expected that some sort 
of an association of nations would be created at 
Paris. As to the form and functions of the asso- 
ciation, public opinion in the United States had 
not then crystallized.' 

It was not until the covenant as finally re- 
ported was found to contain a mutual guaranty 
of territory and independence, together with 

[53 ] 



Wilson 

other features which were claimed to be contrary 
to American interests and to the traditional 
policies of the United States, if they were not 
actually violative of the Constitution, that the 
President's interpretation of the popular will was 
seriously questioned. When, in addition to this 
opposition to the covenant, — which was seized 
upon with avidity by Mr. Wilson's personal and 
political enemies as an opportunity to discredit 
him at home and abroad, — the injustice of 
certain settlements in the treaties was manifest, 
the opposition to a guaranty, which might require 
coercive measures to enforce such settlements, 
increased and greatly strengthened the oppo- 
nents of the covenant, and in fact had much 
to do with preventing the ratification of the 
treaty in the Senate of the United States. 

If the President had inflexibly demanded that 
no terms should be written into the treaty which 
were not wholly just, he would have gone far 
toward accomplishing the purpose of his mission 
to Europe. And if he had also advocated a plan 
for a league of nations which was not open to the 
charge of establishing a supernational authority, 
vested to all intents in an oligarchy of the Great 
Powers, he would have been acclaimed the great- 

[ 54 ] 



Wilson 

est statesman on earth. Unfortunately for the 
present generation and for the future peace of 
the world, he did not pursue this course, but 
distorted his declared purpose to silence opposi- 
tion to his ambitious conception of a dominant 
international organization. The natural con- 
clusion is that he convinced himself that the 
covenant as drafted could not be obtained if he 
insisted on complete justice in all the settlements. 
He chose the covenant and won support to it by 
compromise with those who demanded the ma- 
terial rewards of conquest. 

The courtesy of President Wilson in greeting 
the members of the Council of Ten and in his 
intercourse with them during the sessions was 
unvarying. He never, so far as I can recall, 
showed anger or impatience. I know, however, 
that beneath this outward calm the President 
often seethed with indignation at the way 
matters progressed, but never by word, ges- 
ture, or change of countenance did he permit his 
displeasure or irritation to find open expression. 
He listened with greater attention to a speaker 
than did any other man present, and whenever 
opportunity offered he smiled or told an anecdote 
which some turn in the debate suggested. He 

[ 55 J 



Wilson 

was invariably considerate of the expressed 
opinions of others, and manifested an open mind 
in valuing those opinions. 

While these qualities are as a general rule use- 
ful and admirable in a negotiator, there come 
times when firmness and frankness are necessary. 
The failure to insist in certain cases when the 
conditions of a debate required insistence lost the 
President an advantage which I am sure he 
would have otherwise had. Prone to postpone a 
decision to the last possible moment, he puzzled 
his colleagues in the Council, who could not 
understand how so alert a mind needed more 
time to form an opinion after listening to three 
hours of discussion. This peculiarity of the 
President's mental make-up was frequently 
commented upon by his foreign associates in 
terms by no means complimentary. 

After a subject had been threshed out by the 
Council of Ten, often to the point of weariness, 
M. Clemenceau would often turn to the President 
and ask his opinion as to the action which ought 
to be taken. The President would reply without 
hesitation in precise English, though he usually 
evaded a decision by a general review of the 
points made by both sides during the argument. 

[56 ] 



Wilson 

This he did with clearness and conciseness, show- 
ing how carefully he had listened to the debate. 
While I think that the President's presentation 
showed in a way why he was not prepared to offer 
a solution to the question, it did not advance the 
work of the Council. 

When the President ceased speaking, M. Cle- 
menceau would ask my opinion, then that of Mr. 
Lloyd George, then that of Mr. Balfour, and so 
on down the line of members. He would then 
turn back to the President and ask, " Well, what 
shall we do? " 

The President frequently answered, " Perhaps 
it would be well to refer the matter to a com- 
mittee of experts"; or, "May I ask if any one 
has prepared a resolution?" 

If the last question was asked, it was apt to 
bring a response from Mr. Lloyd George, whose 
secretaries had drafted a resolution while the 
discussion was in progress. A resolution laid 
before the Council after a question had been 
debated was as a rule adopted, at least in 
principle, though often modified in language. It 
was therefore a decided advantage to introduce 
a resolution. The President put aside this ad- 
vantage by failing to suggest that the same 

[57 ] 



Wilson 

course be taken by his expert advisers, who were 
naturally not disposed to follow the practice 
unless it was at his request. Apparently he felt 
an independent personal judgment by him was 
essential and that it would not be independent if 
he adopted the opinion of others. The conse- 
quence was that Mr. Lloyd George, who seldom 
hesitated to accept the views of his experts, in- 
troduced most of the resolutions other than those 
prepared by the French, which were generally 
annexed to the agenda. 

Occasionally, however, M. Clemenceau, after 
a discussion in which the President had expressed 
definite views, would ask the latter to draft a 
resolution embodying his opinion. Mr. Wilson 
would at once take a pencil and without hesita- 
tion and without erasures write out in his small, 
plain hand a resolution couched with exceptional 
brevity in unambiguous terms. In a proposed 
measure of this sort the exactness of his thought 
and his command of language were clearly exhib- 
ited. Possessing this ability, far surpassing that 
of any other person attending the Council of Ten, 
it is all the more deplorable that he did not use 
it constantly. I do not recall that he prepared a 
resolution except at the suggestion of M. Cle- 

[58 1 



Wilson 

menceau or one of the British delegates. If he 
prepared one voluntarily, I do not remember the 
occasion. If he had done so frequently, it would 
have been he rather than the French or British 
who initiated action by the Council, and his 
influence over their decisions would have been 
marked, which in fact it was not except in a few 
instances. 

Mr. Wilson during the sessions of the Council 
of Ten spoke in a low, pleasant voice and without 
rhetorical effort. As no one rose in speaking, he 
would lean forward, resting on the arms of his 
chair, and address his remarks first to one and 
then to another of his confreres. With fluency and 
with perfect diction he would present his views 
in sentences so well rounded that they suggested 
copper-plate perfection. His accuracy of lan- 
guage and his positiveness of assertion not in- 
frequently reminded one of a lecturer imparting 
knowledge to a class, and gave the impression 
that he felt that what he said left nothing else 
to be said. He exhibited the traits of a philoso- 
pher rather than those of an advocate. He pre- 
ferred to deal in generalities rather than with 
facts. His discourses, though essentially aca- 
demic, were clear and logical. 

[59 ] 



Wilson 

The one thing that to my mind marred the 
President's diction was a sort of little chuckle or 
half laugh which frequently interrupted his flow 
of language. I never observed this mannerism 
prior to the first meeting of the heads of states 
and foreign ministers except on one or two occa- 
sions. It seemed to be an involuntary act, caused 
by nervousness or embarrassment. It sounded 
almost apologetic. Probably those who had not 
come in frequent contact with the President prior 
to the Peace Conference never noticed it. To those 
long acquainted with him it seemed to indicate a 
loss of some of the assurance and self-confidence 
which had always been distinguishing charac- 
teristics of his public career. 

After the division of the Council of Ten into 
the Council of the Heads of States — the Big 
Pour — and the Council of Foreign Ministers 
during the last week in March, 1919, and ap- 
proximately five weeks before the treaty with 
Germany was completed, I had little opportunity 
to see the President's work in conference. That 
he labored with great industry and took little 
time for rest and recreation everybody knows. 
He showed in his face the effect of these unre- 
mitting efforts. He looked fatigued and worn. 

[60] 



Wilson 

Nevertheless he persisted with his characteristic 
determination. 

The conferences of the Big Four were usually 
held in the palatial residence on the Place des 
Etats Unis, which had been provided for the 
President's use by the French Government. The 
Four generally met in the library on the ground 
floor, but if they had several persons present to 
give them advice on some technical matter, they 
assembled in the large salon on the second floor. 
At first the four statesmen met alone. Signor 
Orlando did not understand English, and Presi- 
dent Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George had but an 
imperfect knowledge of French. M. Clemenceau 
was therefore the only one thoroughly familiar 
with both languages, and had to act as interpret 
ter. This was found to be unsatisfactory; so 
Professor Mantoux was admitted, and later for 
some reason Sir Maurice Hankey, the secretary 
of the British War Mission, and also Count 
Aldrovandi, of the Italian Mission, were per- 
mitted to be present. Sir Maurice prepared the 
decisions and the minutes of the meetings. Thus 
the President, with no secretary present, had to 
depend on the notes of Hankey if any question 
arose as to the proceedings. 

[CI ] 



Wilson 

Manifestly this was not a safe method of pro- 
cedure in a negotiation which involved the na- 
tional interests of different countries and dealt 
with many complex questions. I do not think 
that American interests suffered materially, — in 
fact, knowing the honorable character of Sir 
Maurice, I am sure that they did not, — but 
certainly the President took a needless risk in not 
having an American secretary present to chron- 
icle the proceedings. It was either a failure 
to appreciate the importance of having his own 
record or else it was his inherent tendency to 
work alone and unaided that induced him to 
adopt this course, though possibly both influ- 
enced him. 

* President Wilson entered upon the negotia- 
tions with a high sense of honor, with altruistic 
purposes, and with a supreme confidence that 
his ideals would be written into the treaty of 
peace. His sense of honor and his altruism he 
maintained to the very end, in spite of the dis- 
appointments and discouragements resulting 
from the spirit of national selfishness which 
was so controlling in the Conference at Paris. 
Against this prevailing spirit the President 
struggled manfully. To an extent he was sue- 

[62 J 



Wilson 

cessful, but he not infrequently failed through 
the secret combinations which were formed 
against him. At the first his absorption in draft- 
ing and obtaining assent to the articles relating 
to the League of Nations caused him apparently 
to give but superficial consideration to other 
matters. Everything to his mind, as far as one 
could judge, depended on completing the cove- 
nant and on giving to the League an active and 
therefore a necessary part in carrying out the 
terms of settlement under the treaty. Agree- 
ments as to the settlements were apparently of 
secondary importance to the creation of an 
agency for the insurance of their performance, 
and the President's assent seemed to have been 
secured in certain cases through the menace of 
opposition to the covenant. 

No doubt Mr. Wilson 'chafed under this 
method of negotiation, — a method as jold as 
diplomacy itself, — feeling that he was not re- 
ceiving the undivided support which he had a 
right to expect in his efforts to obtain a just 
peace. His task was arduous and exasperating. 
If personal toil had been the only thing, he would 
have been wholly successful. Had he been will- 
ing to delegate to others the negotiation of some 

[63] 



Wilson ' 

of the decisions, important as they were, he 
would have had leisure to recuperate; but he 
was not willing. On the contrary, he insisted 
that everything must be decided by him, that 
all the threads of the treaty fabric must be in his 
hands. Others might help him untangle some of 
the knots and arrange the threads in order, but 
it was his business alone to weave them into the 
treaty. He seemed, in fact, to resent any influ- 
ence exerted upon him to decide a matter in a 
certain way. He relied on his own judgment, 
and indicated that suggestion or advice, unless 
he requested it, was an interference with his 
freedom of decision and was not acceptable. 
Whether this attitude was the result of an ab- 
normal conception of his constitutional respon- 
sibility for the conduct of international relations, 
ot of an exaggerated belief in his superior men- 
tality, I do not pretend to say. 

With the multitude of decisions which had to 
be rendered, many of which were not only com- 
plex, but required technical knowledge of a high 
order, the attempt of a single individual, however 
gifted, to be the sole arbiter as to the proper 
American position in regard to them all was at 
the least perilous. Yet that is what the President 

[ 64 1 



Wilson 

tried to be. As he is entitled to credit for many 
excellent provisions in the treaty because of his 
steadfastness, so he cannot avoid the blame for 
the questionable settlements which were in- 
serted because he failed to object to them or else 
conceded them through insufficient knowledge 
or by way of compromise. 

From this general comment I must exclude 
the financial and economic terms of the treaty. 
In the adjustment of these difficult questions 
the American experts took a leading part. It 
was not an easy matter to find formulae which 
would harmonize the differences between govern- 
ments, each of which had its own financial and 
economic interests to conserve and its own idea 
as to how this could be done. That an agree- 
ment was reached, which was accepted by, if 
not acceptable to, the interested parties, was a 
notable accomplishment, the credit for which is 
due in large measure to the Americans on the 
commissions charged with the discussion and 
adjustment of these conflicting interests. 

What actually occurred at the meetings of 
the Council of Four was unknown to the Con- 
ference as a whole. Nevertheless rumors and 
reports from time to time sifted through the veil 

[05), 



Wilson 

of secrecy which enveloped the proceedings. It 
is not my purpose to discuss here the secretive- 
ness of the Council or the impression which it 
made on the delegates to the Conference and on 
the public at large. Suffice it for the present 
to say that the secrecy was well preserved, con- 
sidering the daily conferences which M. Clemen - 
ceau, Mr. Lloyd George, and Signor Orlando had 
with their advisers. The fact is that the Ameri- 
can commissioners gained practically all their 
knowledge of the progress of the work of the 
Council from the gossip of the staffs of other 
delegations, — as the President, I am informed, 
declined to let Sir Maurice Hankey furnish any 
of the American Commission with a copy of his 
minutes, — or when an American expert or group 
of experts was requested by the President to be 
present to discuss technical questions. In view 
of this ignorance, it would be presumptuous for 
me to attempt to comment on the traits of 
character exhibited by the heads of states as they 
sat in conclave at the President's residence on 
the Place des Etats Unis. 

That the meetings of the Council of Four were 
not entirely harmonious may be stated with sub- 
stantial certainty. On one occasion soon after 

[66 1 



Wilson 

the Council was formed, so it was credibly re- 
ported, the President and M. Clemenceau lost 
their tempers and the session broke up with a 
considerable exhibition of feeling. This episode 
was unpleasant, but it was decidedly human. 
The wonder is that there were not more incidents 
of the sort, because some of the members of the 
Council possessed qualities which were by no 
means patient under the strain of prolonged 
deliberations. 

It is my belief that President Wilson's influ- 
ence had much to do with preserving peace in 
the Council of Four. Placid and dignified in 
manner, he impressed upon others a disposition 
to be calm in expression and to avoid giving way 
to emotional impulses. In this particular his 
influence was undoubtedly superior to that of any 
other man in the Councils or the Conference, and 
contributed greatly to the amicable settlements 
of many vexatious disputes which caused per- 
sonal irritation and which, but for his considerate 
and temperate attitude, might have ripened into 
personal quarrels. \ 

The President's foreign colleagues recognized 
that he was honestly seeking for firm bases for 
the future peace of the world. Though they 

[07 ] 



Wilson 

* doubtless thought many of his proposals were 
impracticable and therefore of doubtful value, 
they respected their author because of his 
motives, and each of them in his own way en- 
deavored to conform his ideas to those of the 
President in order to gain his moral support.' 
This was a concession to idealism by the selfish 
materialism which was so potent in formulating 
the terms of peace. It bore witness to the general 
feeling among the delegates to the Conference 
that Mr. Wilson stood for international morality 
and justice. 

If the President failed in the full realization of 
his purposes, it was not out of lack of good inten- 
tions, but rather because of inexperience in 
negotiation, of desire to exercise an independent 
judgment, of exaggeration of the importance of 
adopting the covenant, and of overconfidence in 
the motives of others. It was only after the 
Council of Four had been in session for some 
time, and after he had committed himself to 
certain compromises, the justice of which ap- 
peared to many to be doubtful, that the Presi- 
dent seemed to awake to the fact that he had 
overestimated the potency of altruism and of 
abstract justice in the negotiations. From the 

[68 ] 



Wilson 

time that lie seemed to come to a realization of 
the true state of affairs, the statesmen of the 
Allied Powers found him less pliable and ap- 
parently less credulous of their announced inten- 
tions. Up to the end, however, he preserved the 
geniality of manner and the considerate attitude 
which had from the first marked his intercourse 
with the leaders at Paris. 

It was in the plenary sessions of the Confer- 
ence on the Preliminaries of Peace that the 
President's personal gifts showed to the greatest 
advantage. In the presence of the whole body 
of delegates his ability as a speaker, his attrac- 
tive and convincing style of expression, and his 
dignity of manner made a profound impression 
on his listeners. He was more at home in ad- 
dressing a large audience, such as he had at a 
plenary session, than he was sitting at the council 
table under the cross-fire of debate. He, of all 
those who addressed the full assembly of dele- 
gates, was listened to with the greatest atten- 
tion; and his words carried the greatest weight. 
To the delegations from the smaller countries 
he was the uncompromising supporter of the 
ideals which he had declared, the advocate 
of equal justice for all, the sturdy defender of 

[69 ] 



Wilson 

their rights. In him they placed their confidence 
and hope. 

It is true that, as the terms of peace ap- 
proached final settlement and as rumors of what 
the terms were to be spread among the delegates 
in spite of the secrecy which surrounded them, 
there grew up in some minds, particularly of 
those whose national aspirations were reported 
to be unsatisfied, doubt as to the potential influ- 
ence which the President had been able to exert 
over his European colleagues. At first, however, 
the faith of the delegates in him was unbounded, 
and he was received by them with enthusiasm, 
almost with veneration. But after months of 
waiting in idleness and ignorance of the status of 
their own national rights, it became noticeable 
that with the representatives of the smaller na- 
tions the President's popularity waned more and 
more; and though he addressed them with the 
same excellence of language and proclaimed the 
same devotion to lofty principles, the reaction 
upon his hearers was different from what it had 
been in the earlier sessions, and there was an 
evident disposition to accept his statements with 
mental reservations, and not at their face value. 
In fact, it may be said that the disappointed 

[70 1 



Wilson 

delegates no longer saw in him a Moses who was 
to lead the nations to the Promised Land. 

Doubtless this change of attitude, which out- 
side the assembly hall of the Conference found 
expression in whispered criticisms and occasion- 
ally in open complaints, was partly due to the 
President's failure to do all that the grumbling 
delegates expected of him, expectations which no 
mortal man could ever have fulfilled because 
many of the claims founded on national ambi- 
tions lapped and overlapped and could never be 
reconciled so as to satisfy both parties. Thus 
the President lost favor and prestige through his 
inability to do the impossible, since with hardly 
an exception the disappointed delegates blamed 
him especially for their failure to obtain by the 
terms of peace th; t which their nations desired. 
It was one of those unavoidable misfortunes 
which befall a man who, placed on a pedestal, is 
idolized as the embodiment of justice by men 
and by nations whose ideas as to what is just 
vary, possibly unconsciously, according to their 
conceptions of what will be of material benefit 
to themselves. 

The President, as we review his career as a 
peace commissioner at Paris, stands forth as one 

[71 ] 



Wilson 

of the great dominating figures of the Conference, 
who reached the zenith of his power over the 
public mind of Europe, over the delegates and 
over the negotiations at the first plenary session 
of the Conference. The reasons for his decline in 
power, a fact which can hardly be questioned, 
may be one or more of many. First, the loss of 
his superior position by intimate personal inter- 
course with the European statesmen, which 
could have been avoided if he had remained in 
the United States or if he had declined to sit as 
a delegate at Paris. Second, his evident lack of 
experience as a negotiator and his failure to 
systematize the work of the American Com- 
mission and to formulate a programme. Third, 
his seclusiveness and apparent determination to 
conduct personally almost every phasfe of the 
negotiations and to decide every -question alone 
and independently. Fourth, his willingness to 
arrange all settlements behind closed doors 
with the three other heads of states present at 
the Conference. Fifth, his unavoidable lack of 
knowledge of the details of some of the simple 
as well as the intricate problems to be solved. 
Sixth, his insistence on the adoption of the cove- 
nant of the League of Nations, as drafted, and 

[72] 



Wilson 

the overcoming of opposition by concessions to 
national aspirations, the justice of which was at 
least disputable. Seventh, his loss of the initia- 
tive in the formulation of the provisions of the 
treaties. Eighth, his apparent abandonment of 
the smaller nations and his tacit denial of the 
equality of nations by consenting to the creation 
of an oligarchy of the Great Powers at the Con- 
ference and in a modified form in the covenant. 
And, ninth, the impression, which greatly in- 
creased after his return from the United States 
in March, that the American people were not a 
unit in support of his aims as to a league of 
nations, as those aims were disclosed by the 
report made to the Peace Conference. 

This list might be extended, but the reasons 
stated are sufficient to explain much that' oc- 
curred at Paris and also many of the features of 
the treaty of peace with Germany which have 
been the subject of debate', 1 ' censure, and de- 
nunciation. 

It is not to be wondered at, when the pro- 
ceedings of the Conference are carefully con- 
sidered, that the Old Tiger of France, with his 
materialistic motives, his intense patriotism, and 
his cynical view of transcendental intern ational- 

[73] 



Wilson 

ism, became, as he was, the dominant personality 
in the Peace Conference and the most potent 
member of the Council of Four. His shrewd and 
practical methods of negotiation succeeded bet- 
ter than the President's idealism. Yet the latter's 
personal influence upon the delegates and his 
success in incorporating in the treaty of peace the 
covenant of the League of Nations, whatever 
may be thought of its provisions, entitle him 
to a place second only to M. Clemenceau among 
the statesmen who directed affairs at Paris. 

The conclusion should not be drawn from the 
comments which have been made as to the faults 
in the Treaty of Versailles that the treaty as a 
whole should be condemned. As a definitive 
treaty of peace, exclusive of the articles relating 
to the League of Nations, negotiated in the waj^ 
and at the time that it was, it would have been 
difficult to have obtained a better one, consider- 
ing the numerous conflicting interests and the 
intemperate spirit of vengeance which then pre- 
vailed. The treaty has defects, many defects; it 
has bad provisions which should not have been 
included; but the wonder is that, in the circum- 
stances, they are not more general and more 
glaring. 

[74] 



Wilson 

The chief objections raised against the treaty 
in the United States have been to those articles 
comprising the covenant of the League of Na- 
tions and to those dealing with Shantung. The 
other settlements, though some are admittedly 
open to criticism, appear to be generally ac- 
ceptable. 

The interweaving of the League of Nations 
into various provisions of the treaty, a scheme 
which raises a question as to the scruples of the 
author, has, in the opinion of many, tainted the 
whole document with evil. This is manifestly 
unjust and evidences a prejudice which results 
from ignorance or, what is more deplorable, from 
an unreasonable mental attitude. 

The truth is, as some saw it in Paris and as 
others have seen it since the negotiation and 
signature of the treaty, there should have been 
drafted a preliminary treaty of peace, avoiding 
as far as possible all controversial and complex 
questions and restoring a state of peace with little 
delay. When the great need of the world had 
been thus satisfied, the negotiation of the defini- 
tive treaty and the plan for an organization of 
the nations could have been taken up separately 
with the care and deliberation to which they 

[75] 



Wilson 

were entitled and under conditions more favor- 
able to the formulation of just and wise settle- 
ments. 

If this course had been adopted, President 
Wilson would have been spared the vexations 
and entanglements which surrounded him in 
Paris and which were in large measure respon- 
sible for his failure to hold the first place in the 
Peace Conference. The drafting of a definitive 
treaty, including a detailed covenant for the 
League of Nations, seriously impaired his influ- 
ence, his prestige, and his reputation. His 
insistence upon the incorporation of the cove- 
nant in the treaty lost him the world leader- 
ship which was in his grasp. 



[76] 



Ill 

LLOYD GEORGE 

In Mr. Lloyd George, who, in my judgment, 
was third in prominence and influence among the 
Big Four, one finds a very different type of man 
from either of the two who have been considered. 
While M. Clemenceau and Mr. Wilson entered 
upon the negotiations with general objects to be 
attained, the one national and material, the other 
international and ideal, Mr. Lloyd George, if he 
had a prepared programme, which I assume he 
did from my acquaintance with his learned and 
able advisers, did not follow it persistently. His 
course was erratic, and he so often shifted his 
ground that one felt that he had abandoned his 
plan, or at least that he did not care to follow it 
rigidly, preferring to depend on his own sagacity 
to take advantage of a situation. As questions 
arose, particularly those affected by changing 
political and military conditions, he decided the 
British attitude with characteristic quickness of 
judgment and with a positiveness which im- 
pressed one with the alertness rather than the 
depth of his mind, and with the confidence which 

[ 77 J 



Lloyd George 

he felt in his own ability to grasp a subject and 
decide it in the most expedient way, even though 
he had not given it the study and thought which 
other men felt were necessary for a wise decision. 
Ready as Mr. Lloyd George was to declare a 
position on any subject, he seemed to be equally 
ready to change that position on obtaining fur- 
ther information or on the advice of his expert 
counselors. He did this with an avowal that he 
had not previously been in possession of the 
facts or else with an explanation intended to 
show that his new attitude was not contradictory 
of the former one. His explanations were always 
clever and well presented, but they were not 
always convincing. The British Premier thus 
put aside that which had gone before and pro- 
ceeded to handle the question under discussion 
as if nothing had occurred to change the course 
of the debate. Inconsistency never seemed to 
disturb him or to cause him to hesitate. If he 
took the trouble to explain a change of attitude, 
it was out of no sense of obligation to justify 
himself, but rather in deference to the opinion of 
others and to prevent complaint. It apparently 
was a trivial matter to him to change his mind 
once or twice on a proposed settlement. 

[78] 




Copyright by Harris <£• Ewing 



^~ ?^v 




tv/ft 



Lloyd George 

While Mr. Lloyd George was vague as to 
general principles, which accounted largely for 
the fluid state of his judgments, he had made 
certain promises during the parliamentary elec- 
tions of December, 1918, which he considered 
binding upon him in the negotiations at Paris. 
Of these Germany's payment of the costs of the 
war and the public trial of the Kaiser by an inter- 
national tribunal of justice attracted the most 
attention. He was very insistent that the treaty 
should make these promises good, although he 
must have known that the first was impossible 
and the second unwise as well as in defiance of 
all legal precepts. In addition to his political 
commitments, he was determined to obtain the 
cession of the principal German colonies in 
Africa and the German islands in the Pacific 
south of the equator, control of Mesopotamia, a 
protectorate over Egypt, a practical protectorate 
over Persia in the event that Persian affairs came 
before the Conference, the destruction of the 
German naval power and the elimination of the 
German merchant marine as a rival of Great 
Britain in the carrying trade of the world. To 
these well-defined national policies, which were 
essentially selfish and material, the British Prime 

[79 ] 



Lloyd George 

Minister clung tenaciously and was able to obtain 
nearly all of them by skillful maneuvering. His 
idea seemed to be that, if these objects were 
attained, the decisions as to other matters were 
of relatively little importance unless British in- 
terests were directly affected, and that to study 
them thoroughly was a needless expenditure of 
time and energy. It was very evident to any one 
who was familiar with the subjects that he 
counted on his skill as a ready debater and on 
the promptings of his experts to handle the ques- 
tions satisfactorily when they were presented to 
the Council of Four or Council of Ten. 

Mr. Lloyd George had a pleasing- personality 
and a hearty manner of address, which won him 
friends even among those who were disposed to 
charge him with vacillation. Of him it may be 
said that he possessed personal magnetism. He 
was short in stature, and rather thickset. His 
complexion, which was ruddy and almost as clear 
as a child's, was set off by an abundance of 
silvery-white hair brushed back from his broad 
forehead, and by a short white mustache which 
curved over his lips. His eyes were keen and 
twinkling, and when he smiled the wrinkles at 
the corners were very marked. He would enter 

[80 1 



Lloyd George 

the council chamber at the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs, generally late, with a quick step, which 
on account of its length made it a bit swaggering, 
and greet his colleagues with a genial smile and 
a bluff heartiness which were attractive. 

On taking his seat in the great brocaded arm- 
chair between Mr. Balfour and me, he would 
usually lean back and ask his secretary in an 
audible undertone if there were any notes on the 
agenda. If any were handed to him, he would 
put on his eyeglasses, examine the papers in a 
hasty, offhand way, ask a few questions of the 
secretary leaning over the back of his chair, and 
then, putting the papers down on the table in 
front of him, lean back with his weight on his 
right arm and wait composedly the opening of 
the session. His manner conveyed the impression 
of a man who was satisfied that he had obtained 
all the information that he needed to deal with 
the several subjects to be discussed by the Coun- 
cil. One could not but admire the complacency 
which he showed as to his own ability. In the 
conferences of the Council, Mr. Lloyd George 
disclosed that his training was that of a parlia- 
mentarian rather than that of a diplomat. He 
did not speak in the calm, deliberate, and precise 

181 1 



Lloyd George 

manner in which President Wilson spoke, nor in 
the analytical and closely reasoned style of 
Signor Orlando when arguing a point. The 
British statesman was very much of a rough-and- 
tumble debater, quick to seize upon the weak 
points of an opponent and to attack them vigor- 
ously, sometimes with sarcasm and ridicule, and 
often with flat denials of fact. His logic, if one 
could so call it, was that of an opportunist, and 
not at all sound or convincing. He was better in 
attack than in defense, as the latter required 
detailed knowledge of every phase of the ques- 
tion, while in attacking he could choose his own 
ground. He did not hesitate to interrupt a 
speaker with a hasty question or comment, and 
sometimes, if he seemed to be getting the worse 
of an argument, he assumed a scoffing and even a 
blustering manner which did not harmonize with 
the sedateness of the Council of Ten, though it 
did seem to fit into the portrait of the famous 
Welsh politician. 

While during a debate he was thus prone to 
interfere with others, Mr. Lloyd George showed 
displeasure or annoyance if he was interrupted 
when speaking or if his statements were chal- 
lenged. He had held his place in the British 

[ 82 1 



Lloyd George 

House of Commons by constant forensic battles. 
He had used all the arts of a popular political 
leader to maintain his position, and he had suc- 
ceeded more by reason of his dynamic personality 
and by fearlessly defying his enemies than by 
the superiority of his learning or the strength of 
his position. All people admire fearlessness and 
instinctively follow a leader who takes the offen- 
sive instead of standing on the defensive. They 
seem to care far more for this trait than they 
do for depth of knowledge or soundness of logic. 
His appreciation of this quality of human nature 
and his constant exploitation of it in his political 
career made Lloyd George the Prime Minister 
of Great Britain. Nothing daunted him. No 
antagonist was too strongly entrenched to dis- 
courage him. His quick wit, his ready tongue, 
and his self-confidence made him what he was, 
a great parliamentary leader. In some ways his 
attainments as a politician were not dissimilar 
to those of M. Clemenceau, though the latter 
appeared to be more constant and — to use 
a vulgar term — less shifty than his British 
colleague. 

In the Councils at Paris these qualities of mind 
were by no means so effective as in the House of 

[83 ] 



Lloyd George 

Commons or on the political platform. M. Cle- 
menceau sagaciously cast them aside, but Mr. 
Lloyd George could not. They were his heavy 
artillery. He would have been lost without them. 
In the negotiations conducted by the heads of 
states and foreign ministers of the Five Great 
Powers, accurate knowledge counted and intel- 
lectual ability claimed first place. Without Mr. 
Balfour's aid and without the constant advice 
of his subordinates, Mr. Lloyd George would, I 
fear, have been decidedly outclassed. As it was, 
his truculence of manner when hard pressed in 
debate, his attempts to ignore substantial argu- 
ments which he was not prepared to answer, and 
his frequent efforts to enhance the importance of 
a fact by emphatic declaration were methods 
that certainly did not carry conviction. 

Yet nobody could come into intimate associa- 
tion with Mr. Lloyd George without falling under 
the spell of his personal charm. One might dis- 
like his methods as those of a politician; one 
might even feel a measure of contemptuous 
surprise that he dared to discuss a question of 
territory without knowing exactly where the 
territory was; and there might be a feeling of 
irritation that he changed his mind whenever it 

[84 ] 



Lloyd George 

seemed to him expedient; but with it all one 
liked the man; it was simply impossible not to 
like him. His cheeriness, his vivacity, his never- 
failing good nature, and his delightful humor 
were assets which counted greatly in his favor. 

There was one deplorable phase of the pro- 
ceedings at Paris for which, I think, Mr. Lloyd 
George was chiefly though by no means entirely 
responsible. That was the secrecy which pre- 
vailed as to the work of the Council of Ten and 
later as to that of the Council of Four. Of course 
a certain measure of secrecy as to individual 
opinions was necessary while questions were un- 
decided: otherwise there would have been no 
frankness in the discussions; but to keep deci- 
sions hidden even from the delegates of countries 
whose national rights and interests were affected, 
until the German treaty was in final form and 
printed, was certainly contrary to the spirit of 
open diplomacy and of common justice. Yet this 
is what actually happened by order of the heads 
of states. 

The creation of the Council of Four was prob- 
ably due to this desire to shut more tightly the 
door upon the deliberations of the statesmen 
who had the last word as to the terms of peace. 

[85] 



Lloyd George 

Not that it was the sole reason, but that it was 
the principal one seems to be the fact. That the 
idea of splitting the Council of Ten into two 
bodies originated with Mr. Lloyd George I 
believe, but do not positively know. The at- 
tempt to make President Wilson responsible for 
it, and to assign as a reason certain attempted 
actions by the Council of Ten during his brief 
visit to the United States in February, is absurd, 
as no action was attempted contrary to his 
wishes while he was absent. As I have said, my 
belief is that Mr. Lloyd George was the origi- 
nator of the plan and probably the author of the 
announced reason, which was that two councils 
could cover more ground than a single council, a 
reason which, though to an extent true, was not 
the real one. 

The British Premier throughout his sojourn 
in France was in daily touch with the state of 
affairs in Parliament as well as in Great Britain 
i at large. Never for a moment did he take his 
hand from the political pulse at home. Though 
he had been victorious in the December elections, 
his position was none the less precarious, de- 
pendent as it was on a coalition of parties, which 
is always more or less unstable. Constantly fac- 

[86] 



Lloyd George 

ing the possibility of a crisis in his government, 
Mr. Lloyd George's attitude on various ques- 
tions arising in the negotiations was undoubtedly 
affected if not determined by British popular 
sentiment as it was disclosed from day to day 
and by the advices which he received from his 
political lieutenants in London. 

While there is a natural disposition to criticize 
him for his attempts to follow the fluctuations 
of public opinion rather than to follow a rigid 
policy, it should be remembered that the tenure 
of office of a British cabinet is dependent on the 
will of the House of Commons and that unless 
a majority supports the Government they are 
forced to resign. M. Clemenceau and Signor 
Orlando, though less openly responsive to public 
opinion than their British colleague and more 
successful than he in disguising their motives, 
were nevertheless constrained to consider the 
wishes of their respective Chambers of Deputies. 
President Wilson alone was untrammeled by do- 
mestic considerations of that nature. He alone 
was free to act without fear of being deprived of 
his authority. Unless the three European states- 
men watched vigilantly the trend of politi- 
cal opinion in their respective countries, and 

[87] 



Lloyd George 

trimmed their sails to meet the shifting winds of 
that opinion, which in the months following the 
armistice were tempestuous and uncertain, any 
one of them was liable to be deprived of his 
premiership and to be recalled from Paris. This 
actually happened later when the Italian Min- 
istry was defeated and Signor Orlando was 
superseded in the Peace Conference by Signor 
Tittoni as the head of the Italian delegation. 

Not only did this watchfulness of public 
thought at home affect the points of view of the 
European leaders on many of the pending ques- 
tions, but it induced a desire for secrecy as to the 
progress of the negotiations. If the proceedings 
were not published, there would not be a con- 
stant heckling of the negotiators by their politi- 
cal enemies. At least so they reasoned, although 
they ran the risk of acting contrary to an in- 
telligent public opinion and of deferring popular 
judgment until it was too late to reverse their 
action. 

It is evident that so far as the Europeans were 
concerned, there was a reason for their favoring 
secret negotiations; but when they went to the 
extent of depriving the delegates from the small 
countries — who were vitally interested in the 

[88] 



Lloyd George 

terms of peace — of all knowledge of the proceed- 
ings of the Councils, they aroused bitter dissatis- 
faction among those who felt that their national 
interests and in some cases the sovereign rights 
of their countries were at stake. It is true that 
the various delegations were accorded hearings 
before one or the other of the Councils and per- 
mitted to plead their cases, but in the delibera- 
tions at which the settlements were decided they 
were not given an opportunity to participate. If 
the interests of one of the countries unrepre- 
sented on the Councils were in conflict with 
the interests or the policies of one of the Five 
Powers, what chance had the small nation to 
obtain full justice? Then, too, the representa- 
tives of Serbia, Rumania, Greece, and others 
of the lesser states, which had been active 
belligerents in the war, received practically the 
same treatment as the unofficial delegations of 
Armenians, Syrians, and Zionists who appeared 
before the Council of Ten. Though the former 
represented independent states and had seats 
in the Conference, their national rights were de- 
termined without their assent by the principal 
delegates of the Great Powers, who assumed 
supreme authority and whose determinations 

[89] 



Lloyd George 

were kept secret so far as was possible until 
the treaty was finally drafted. 

There is no doubt that the method adopted 
was essential to the practical control of the pro- 
ceedings by the Great Powers, and that it also 
expedited the negotiations, but in my opinion 
the sacrifice of the principle of the equality of 
nations and of the fundamental right of every 
independent state, the little as well as the large, 
the weak as well as the powerful, to have a voice 
in the determination of its own destiny, was too 
great a price to pay for the advantages gained. 
The basic principle recognized in international 
intercourse prior to the war was that before the 
law all independent nations are equal. That 
principle has been seriously impaired if not 
entirely discredited by the proceedings at Paris, 
and this revival of the old doctrine that even in 
times of peace the strong shall rule has been so 
woven into the structure of the League of Na- 
tions that it will be a difficult task to resurrect 
the doctrine of equality and restore it to its place 
as the first maxim of international law, the funda- 
mental principle of international relations. The 
hope for such restoration lies in giving first place 
to legal justice, applied through the medium of 

[90] 



Lloyd George 

international courts, independent of any political 
or diplomatic international body which may be 
formed. 

It cannot be doubted that President Wilson 
in agreeing to, if he did not advocate, the primacy 
of the Great Powers at Paris lost an advantage 
which he could easily have held had he opposed 
it. Supported as he was by most if not all of the 
smaller states represented in the Conference, — • 
at least at the first, since they looked upon him as 
their firm friend, — he could have maintained his 
superior position if he had held strictly to the 
rule of equality and insisted that, if the terms of 
peace were to be definitive, they should be con- 
sidered and drafted by general commissions 
whose reports should be discussed and passed 
upon in full sessions of the Conference. Even 
when that normal and customary way was 
abandoned, he lost another opportunity. Sup- 
ported as he was by the people of nearly every 
country, he could have brought tremendous 
pressure upon his three principal colleagues if he 
had resisted the policy of extreme secrecy which 
was followed. He failed to perceive, or else he 
feared to seize, these chances, and therefore must 
share the blame with his associates. 

[91 1 



Lloyd George 

I have stated that Mr. Lloyd George, in my 
opinion, was principally responsible for the se- 
crecy of the proceedings of the Councils. I know 
that he showed the greatest perturbation over 
publicity and most strenuously demanded that 
the discussions and settlements should be held 
strictly secret. Though the meetings of the 
Council of Ten were considered confidential, 
only an official communique being given out after 
a meeting, there frequently appeared in the 
Parisian press reports of the proceedings which 
were no doubt embarrassing to the British Gov- 
ernment, since they became the subject of in- 
terpellation and discussion in Parliament. As 
nearly all the cases of these unauthorized reports 
seemed to be in a measure helpful to the French 
Cabinet in the Chamber of Deputies, it was 
presumed, not without reason, that the informa- 
tion came from the official group who, independ- 
ently of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, control 
in large measure the acts of the Foreign Office in 
Paris, and who were in constant touch with the 
proceedings of the Peace Conference. 

These published statements greatly annoyed 
Mr. Lloyd George and caused him to use some 
very plain and vigorous language about the way 

[92 ] 



Lloyd George 

news leaked out. He implied rather broadly that 
since the French Government maintained com- 
plete control of the press through its censorship, 
the publication of this news was for political 
purposes, and asserted that he, for one, would 
not stand it. M. Clemenceau listened to these 
complaints with apparently unruffled temper and 
replied that he was as desirous as his distin- 
guished confrere to preserve the absolute secrecy 
of the proceedings, that he deplored the fact that 
anything had occurred which caused him annoy- 
ance, and that he would take steps to prevent 
further publicity, though he was sure that the 
source of the information was not the French 
officials, who were always discreet and honorable. 
With M. Clemenceau's assurances Mr. Lloyd 
George had to be satisfied, at least for the time, 
but as the French journals, after a brief silence, 
began again to print inside information con- 
cerning the Council, he renewed his complaints. 
The French Premier expressed deep concern and 
repeated his assurances that he would do every- 
thing that he could to stop the leak. At the same 
time he pointed out that the London press was 
publishing reports of the proceedings of the 
Council which were very disturbing to him and 

[ 93 ] 



Lloyd George 

his Government and invited the attacks of his 
enemies in the Chamber of Deputies. Mr. Lloyd 
George blustered about this insinuation that his 
people were doing the very thing of which he 
complained, and declared that this improper 
publicity was the result of having so many per- 
sons present at the sessions of the Council, and 
that the only way to check it was to reduce the 
number. In truth, M. Clemenceau and Mr. 
Lloyd George were equally desirous for political 
reasons to have certain matters made public, 
but each of them wished to decide what those 
matters should be. 

The result of these conditions was the organ- 
ization of the Council of the Heads of States. 
There is no question but that the new method of 
conducting business was in the main effective as 
to secrecy. Only the most fragmentary informa- 
tion came through the closed doors of the Presi- 
dent's residence, where the Big Four sat in 
conclave. Not only the public, but the delegates 
to the Conference as well, remained in ignorance of 
the proceedings. Though the general discontent 
increased, and the mutterings — ■ particularly 
of the representatives of the press assembled 
in Paris — grew louder and more bitter against 

[94 ] 



Lloyd George 

this policy of silence and mystery, Mr. Lloyd 
George did not appear to be disturbed. On the 
contrary, he was even more insistent that the 
seal of secrecy should remain unbroken. 

The climax of this dislike — or possibly I 
should say, this fear — of publicity on the part of 
the British statesman came at a meeting of the 
Council of Ten held at the President's house 
about the middle of April, which, according to 
the notice, was summoned to consider the pub- 
licity to be given to the terms of peace before 
the treaty was delivered to the Germans, but 
which was, in fact, summoned to devise means 
to prevent the terms from becoming public. 
The meeting was one of the most extraordinary 
ever held in connection with a great international 
congress, most extraordinary as to subject, dis- 
cussion, and result. 

I do not feel that I can give a detailed account 
of what occurred at this meeting, but it may be 
said that Mr. Lloyd George held the opinion — 
an opinion which he freely expressed outside the 
Council — that in order to keep secret the terms 
of the treaty as long as possible the delegates of 
the lesser co-belligerent states, who had been 
excluded from all participation in the drafting of 

[ 95 ] 



Lloyd George 

the document, ought not even to see the full text 
before the Germans saw it, and that all delegates, 
friends and foes alike, should simply be directed 
to "sign here." This opinion — which was evi- 
dently based on the assumed right of the Great 
Powers to dictate to the Conference — was 'ap- 
parently made with the idea that it would be 
too late to propose changes in the treaty after 
the terms had been imposed on the Germans, and 
that the terms could not become the subject of 
political attack or public criticism at home while 
the Germans were considering them and formu- 
lating objections to them. 

The result of the meeting was a decree or order 
by the Council of Four that a summary, and not 
the text, of the treaty should be laid before the 
delegates on the afternoon preceding the delivery 
of the document to the German representatives, 
and that no delegate should be permitted to de- 
bate the terms unless it was in a perfunctory 
manner, and in no event to attempt to amend 
them. The conduct of the proceedings being 
in the hands of M. Clemenceau, the programme 
was certain to go through. Altogether this was 
the most amazing and most indefensible exhibi- 
tion of the despotism of the Five Powers that 

[96 1 



Lloyd George 

was given at the Conference. It was in utter dis- 
regard of the legal rights of sovereignty in times 
of peace, a reversion to physical might as the 
measure of authority. The impression made 
upon the delegates of the smaller nations can 
be imagined. They were aghast at such treat- 
ment, as well they might be, but without an influ- 
ential leader what could they do? Some of them 
said frankly that they expected nothing less of 
M. Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd George, but that 
they had confidently believed that President 
Wilson would not permit such unjust treatment, 
that they were in despair at his desertion of them, 
and that they were convinced that he was not the 
strong man they had thought him, since he had 
surrendered to those who favored the primacy of 
the Five Great Powers. Mr. Wilson from that 
time forward lost the commanding position 
which he had held with the lesser nations. They 
no longer had confidence in his courage and in- 
fluence. 

The fact is that the two leading European 
statesmen were secretive through fear of the 
effect of publicity on their political fortunes, and 
the President was secretive by nature. As for 
Signor Orlando, he belonged to that school of 

[97 1 



Lloyd George 

statesmanship of which a cardinal principle is 
and always had been secretiveness as to dis- 
cussions, agreements, and alliances, national and 
international. His training and experience in 
government made his approval certain. With 
the Japanese, secretiveness is a racial charac- 
teristic. 

Yet, in my opinion, Mr. Lloyd George went 
further than any of his colleagues would have 
gone in advocating the suppression of informa- 
tion, and he urged it with a frankness which 
showed an utter lack of regard for, or possibly 
lack of appreciation of, the attributes of sov- 
ereignty. Had there been a trained legal mind 
among the Big Four, other than that of Signor 
Orlando, it might have been different. Unfor- 
tunately, the three principal statesmen of that 
powerful group were without such training, 
although both Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lloyd 
George had begun life as members of the legal 
profession. They were unable to think in terms 
of international law or to model their procedure 
to conform to the custom and usage of nations. 
The rights and liberties of independent states 
were in peril. They needed a jealous guardian to 
protect them from invasion. There was none. 

[98] 



Lloyd George 

It was a serious defect in the constitution of the 
Council, which was reflected in other phases of 
its proceedings. 

The insistence of the British Prime Minister 
on secrecy at Paris was one of the manifestations 
of that opportunism which has distinguished 
his public career. Expediency controlled in a 
marked degree his actions during the negotiations 
as it had done his policies and acts as leader of the 
Government in Parliament. He did not accept 
a principle, or at least showed no disposition to 
apply it, unless it appeared to lead to some prac- 
tical advantage to his Government, and if he 
found that his anticipation as to the result was 
wrong, he unhesitatingly abandoned the prin- 
ciple and assumed another. 

When one reviews the unusual political career 
of Mr. Lloyd George, and sees how successfully 
he managed to hold his own with the conserva- 
tive element of the British people and to placate 
the radicals — even those of the more advanced 
type — by meeting them part way or by appearing 
to acquiesce in their extreme views, his shrewd- 
ness and sagacity in the management of contend- 
ing political factions arouse admiration for his 
ability, though it does not follow that they 

[99 ] 






Lloyd George 

excite the same emotion as to his devotion to 
principle or to his constancy of purpose. 

More than once, while the negotiations were 
in progress at Paris, Mr. Lloyd George returned 
to London and appeared in the House of Com- 
mons for the purpose of leading the Government 
in repelling an attack by the Opposition. On 
those occasions he so adroitly explained the 
Government's policies and so brilliantly pictured 
the satisfactory progress of the work of the 
Peace Conference that the attempted criticisms 
which followed were feeble and futile. Aggres- 
sive, sanguine, and cheerfully willing to face his 
opponents, he successfully combated their criti- 
cisms. Having routed his antagonists at home, 
he returned to Paris unquestionably stronger in 
his own eyes, as well as in the eyes of others, 
because of his evident mastery of the parlia- 
mentary situation. 

While opinions may differ as to whether Mr. 
Lloyd George is a great statesman, no one can 
truthfully deny that he is a great politician who 
shows a remarkable insight into human nature 
and a skill in the manipulation of political forces 
which have enabled him to hold his place in the 
most difficult circumstances. Through the criti- 

[ 100 ] 



Lloyd George 

cal periods of the war he maintained his ascend- 
ancy by his ability to play off faction against 
faction, and by his agility in keeping his equilib- 
rium on a very flimsy structure built up of dis- 
cordant and even of hostile elements. Often his 
position was extremely precarious, but his wit 
and readiness as a speaker always saved him 
from defeat in the House of Commons. 

While he brought this cleverness to his aid in 
the negotiations at Paris, sudden changes of 
position and the endeavor to divide his opponents 
by encouraging first one and then another were 
methods unsuited to the settlement of inter- 
national differences. They did not work in the 
same way that they did in the sphere of domes- 
tic politics. His methods carried the impression, 
possibly an erroneous one, that he was unreliable, 
in fact, wabbly. This feeling decidedly impaired 
his influence in the Councils, as it did among the 
delegates in general. Though his keenness of 
mind was fully appreciated, the way in which it 
was used aroused doubt as to his sincerity, and 
nothing can be more detrimental to a negotia- 
tor than to be credited with insincerity. The 
consequence was that every position taken and 
every suggestion offered by the British leader was 

[ 101 ] 



Lloyd George 

suspected and a hidden purpose was frequently 
presumed when doubtless there was none. 

But Mr. Lloyd George, always looking at a 
question from the point of view of expediency, 
would have been seriously handicapped in the 
council chamber had he not relied on the experi- 
ence and knowledge of Mr. Balfour, Lord Milner, 
and Sir Eyre Crowe, who foresaw whither the 
expedient might lead him. He accepted the 
judgment of others unless their judgment came 
in direct conflict with his political programme 
for the day, and even then he was willing to 
modify his views to meet, at least partially, the 
course which they advised. 

Mr. Lloyd George possessed a wonderfully 
alert mind which fairly bubbled over with 
restless energy. He made decisions rapidly and 
with little regard for details or fundamental 
principles. If he fell into error through incom- 
plete knowledge or wrong deductions, he picked 
himself up with a laugh or a witticism and went 
ahead as if nothing had happened. In debate 
he was vigorous and often impetuous. If it were 
shown that his argument was based on false 
premises, he unblushingly changed his premises, 
but not his argument. The audacity with which 

[ 102 1 



Lloyd George 

he ignored logic was a subject of frequent com- 
ment. He, in my opinion, had the quickest mind 
of the Big Four, but it seemed to lack stability. 
He gave the impression of a man who through 
force of circumstances had been compelled to 
jump at conclusions instead of reaching them 
through the surer but slower processes of reason. 
By many he was credited with superficial knowl- 
edge and careless judgment. This opinion was 
a natural result of the way in which he pressed 
forward, showing impatience that others were not 
willing to render decisions on evidence which he 
deemed entirely sufficient, but which his col- 
leagues considered questionable. 

Vivacious, good-tempered, and possessing a 
strong sense of humor, Mr. Lloyd George was 
socially an attractive person, while in debate his 
cleverness in finding the weak spots in an op- 
ponent's armor and his utter indifference to his 
own errors made him a dangerous antagonist. 
He attacked with vigor and he defended by 
attacking. But this unusual man possessed none 
of the arts of diplomacy. He was not by nature 
a negotiator. His successes at Paris — and they 
were not a few — were largely due to the ex- 
cellent advice which was given him, and which 
he wisely received. 



IV 

ORLANDO 

Signor Orlando possessed physical and mental 
characteristics which have left pleasant memories 
of intercourse with him. Short and rotund in 
person, with thick white hair worn pompadour 
and a white mustache partially covering his 
rather full lips, he was not in personal appear- 
ance typical of Italy. His shortness of stature, 
which was about that of Mr. Lloyd George, was 
emphasized by his usual custom of wearing a 
close-fitting sack coat, which he generally kept 
tightly buttoned. With a friendly eye and a 
smile which dimpled his cheeks, one knew at a 
glance that he was of a kindly nature and not 
disposed to quarrel without a sufficient provoca- 
tion. His clear complexion and unwrinkled face 
indicated good health and a capacity to enjoy 
life. 

The mentality of Signor Orlando was moulded 
on different lines from those of any other member 
of the Council of the Heads of States. It had 
been trained and developed in the field of juris- 
prudence, and possessed the precision of thought 

[ 104 ] 



Orlando 

and clearness of expression which are the attri- 
butes of a mind accustomed to the exactness 
of legal expressions. In some ways it was harder 
to judge accurately the mental qualities of the 
Italian statesman than those of his confreres 
because his inability to speak or to understand 
English debarred him in a measure from the 
informal discussions of the Council, which were 
generally conducted in that language out of con- 
sideration for President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd 
George. With the aid of Professor Man toux, how- 
ever, he was able to participate more than might 
have seemed possible in the circumstances. 

It is fitting to digress for a moment and to say 
a word of Professor Man toux, who wore a French 
captain's uniform, and was inherited by the 
Council of Ten from the Supreme War Council. 
No interpreter could have performed his onerous 
task with greater skill than he. Possessing an 
unusual memory for thought and phrase, he did 
not interpret sentence by sentence, but, while an 
address or statement was being made, he listened 
intently, occasionally jotting down a note with 
the stub of a lead pencil. When the speaker had 
finished, this remarkable linguist would translate 
his remarks into English or into French as the 
[ 105 ] 



Orlando 

case might be, without the least hesitation and 
with a fluency and completeness which were 
almost uncanny. Even if the speaker had 
consumed ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes, the 
address was accurately repeated in the other 
language, while Professor Mantoux would em- 
ploy inflection and emphasis with an oratorical 
skill that added greatly to the perfectness of the 
interpretation. No statement was too dry to 
make him inattentive or too technical for his 
vocabulary. Eloquence, careful reasoning, and 
unusual style in expression were apparently 
easily rendered into idiomatic English from the 
French, or vice versa. He seemed almost to take 
over the character of the individual whose words 
he translated, and to reproduce his emotions 
as well as his thoughts. His extraordinary at- 
tainments were recognized by every one who 
benefited by them, and his services commanded 
general admiration and praise. 

In addition to the information obtained 
through the excellent interpretations of Pro- 
fessor Mantoux, Signor Orlando had the aid of 
Baron Sonnino, the Italian Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, who spoke English without an accent 
and understood it perfectly. The Baron, white- 

[ 106 ] 



Orlando 

haired and white-mustached, with a florid 
complexion and a genial smile, which was a bit 
saturnine, belonged to the diplomats of the old 
school, and was disposed to practice their 
methods. Practical and deliberate in urging his 
views, which were little affected by idealistic 
considerations, he sought always to secure ma- 
terial benefits for his country. It was clearly 
national interest rather than abstract justice 
which controlled his mind. In appearance at 
least he impressed one as superior to his leader. 
Possibly he was; but then, the same might have 
been said of Mr. Balfour, who, in addition to 
his dignity of appearance, was recognized to be 
the intellectual superior of Mr. Lloyd George. 
This latter superiority could not, however, be 
attributed to Baron Sonnino. Signor Orlando 
was intellectually as well equipped as he. 

The Italian Premier possessed certain qualities 
of mind which were of an exceptional order and 
which marked him as a statesman rather than a 
politician. In fact, his political instinct seemed 
to be deficient, and events proved him by no 
means skillful as a political leader. As an 
opportunist he was a failure. But when we 
analyze his statesmanlike qualities, which were 
[ 107 ] 



Orlando 

clearly in'evidence at Paris, I think that it is not 
going too far to say that no member of the Coun- 
cil of Four, or of the Council of Ten for that 
matter, was his superior in presenting a clear, 
concise, and comprehensive argument during the 
course of an extemporaneous debate. 

Signor Orlando's mind seemed to work auto- 
matically in analyzing, classifying, and arranging 
the points in a controversy. Having stored away 
each essential fact or reason in the proper com- 
partment of his brain, he called it forth at just 
the right place in his argument and impressed it 
with just the right value. He did not exaggerate 
the importance of a fact or ignore the strength of 
an adverse argument. When he had finished 
debating a question, one had to admit, whether 
he agreed with him or not, that he had made as 
logical a presentation of his side of the case as it 
was possible to make, and that there was nothing 
to add. As for the effectiveness of Signor Or- 
lando's arguments, that is another matter, in 
view of the preconceived ideas and natural bias 
of his listeners, but no one heard him without 
realizing his strength as an advocate. The fact 
is, however, that the way to succeed in the Coun- 
cil was to offer some form of compromise which 

[ 108 J 



Orlando 

would harmonize conflicting positions. When he 
attempted this, he showed to less advantage. 

I believe that the excellent character of the 
arguments made by Signor Orlando was in a 
measure due to his experience as a jurist and to 
the analytical method of thinking which he had 
acquired. His colleagues in the Council of Four 
were not so well equipped as he for discussing a 
legal question or preparing a legal formula. This 
is an important attainment in a negotiator when 
one considers that a treaty is essentially a law 
and that its preparation requires technical legal 
knowledge and experience. As was too often 
manifest, the value of logic and evidence was not 
so fully appreciated by M. Clemenceau, Presi- 
dent Wilson, and Mr. Lloyd George as it was by 
the learned Italian jurisconsult. With him no 
time was wasted on side issues or in announcing 
generalities which sounded well, but could not be 
concretely applied. In speaking he did not grope 
about for something to say. He knew where lay 
the strength and where the weakness of his case. 
He pressed the former with vigor and assurance, 
and he defended the latter with skill. 

Occasionally in the heat of debate, especially 
if interrupted by M. Clemenceau with some 

[ 109 ] 



Orlando 

caustic comment, as happened more than once, 
Signor Orlando's Latin temper would flame. His 
eyes would flash; his voice would rise as if sur- 
charged "with emotion; his hands would add 
emphasis to his words; and his sentences would 
pour forth like a torrent. Yet, even under the 
spur of indignation or anger, the logical trend of 
his argument was never interrupted or divert- 
ed. His intellect functioned normally, however 
strongly he was stirred by his emotions. And the 
Old Tiger, whose ferocity of manner was, I am 
sure, often assumed from the mere love of bait- 
ing an opponent, would lean back in his chair 
with half -closed eyes and immobile countenance, 
watching the effect of his words, doubtless hoping 
that he had disconcerted the speaker. If he did 
cherish that hope in the case of his Italian 
colleague, he cherished it in vain. 

Signor Orlando enjoyed a joke and relished a 
good story, particularly if it was illustrative of a 
matter under discussion or was concerning some 
well-known character, living or dead. He was 
always jovial and seemingly in a good humor. 
When an afternoon session of the Council of Ten 
was ended, and the attendants brought a large 
tea-table into the chamber from an adjoining 

[HO] 



Orlando 

room, he always remained to gossip and enjoy 
the society of the men who had been present. 
But during the discussion of a question in the 
Council, Signor Orlando never interlarded his 
remarks with anecdotes and witty sayings, 
evidently considering that to do so would weaken 
his argument and would be out of harmony with 
the dignity of so serious a business as that in 
hand. 

In my opinion the Italian statesman was 
entirely right in not imitating the seeming 
flippancy of some of his colleagues, who appeared 
to think that an informal and jocular manner was 
an actual aid in the settlement of a question 
which might involve the sovereignty over an 
extensive territory or even the life of a nation. 
Under certain conditions a humorous remark, if 
tactfully introduced, may avoid a quarrel or 
prevent a regrettable incident in a discussion 
which has reached a point where tempers are 
aroused and near the explosive point; but the 
constant interjection of witticisms, though they 
may be received with smiles and laughter, de- 
tracts materially from the influence of the one 
who utters them. 

My impression is — though it is only an im- 
[ HI ] 



Orlando 

pression — that Signor Orlando came to Paris 
with the definite purpose of obtaining, so far as 
the Adriatic was concerned, the territorial con- 
cessions laid down in the Pact of London, and 
that the inclusion of the city of Fiume in the 
Italian claims was originally advanced for the 
purpose of bargaining with the Jugo-Slavs, who 
were putting forward excessive claims for por- 
tions of the territory conceded to Italy by the 
London Agreement. But the reason for the 
inclusion of Fiume in the Italian demands is of 
little importance compared with the reason for 
the subsequent insistence with which the demand 
was pressed. Introduced as something with 
which to barter in the event that the Italian 
claims along the Dalmatian coast were curtailed 
in the interest of the Jugo-Slavs, an argument in 
favor of annexation to Italy was built up on the 
principle of self-determination, that phrase which 
has aroused so many false hopes and caused so 
much despair since it was coined, and which is a 
continuing source of discontent and turmoil in 
the world. He especially emphasized the prepon- 
derance of Italians in the population of Fiume 
because he was led to believe that the President 
would support this principle. 

[ 112 ] 



Orlando 

Signor Orlando, soon after his arrival in Paris, 
found the situation such that he came to the 
conclusion that if he remained firm in his claim 
for the port he would succeed in obtaining it for 
Italy. This course naturally appealed to him, 
since success would strengthen his political posi- 
tion at Rome, which was endangered by the 
probability that the full grant under the Pact of 
London could not be attained. Thus the claim 
was converted from one put forward to surrender 
in a compromise, if I am correct in my surmise, 
to one which it was possible to secure. 

Convinced of the substantial certainty that 
the President would in the end consent to the 
cession, and feeling assured that the British and 
French would not object, a propaganda in favor 
of Fiume for Italy was begun at Rome, so that 
when the annexation actually took place the 
Italian people would acclaim Signor Orlando and 
his statesmanship, and he would reap the full 
political benefit of the achievement. Possibly, 
too, it was thought that a strong manifestation 
of national feeling would make certain the Presi- 
dent's favorable decision. 

The trouble was that the policy adopted was 
based on a false belief as to the President's 

[ H3 1 



Orlando 

ultimate agreement that the city should come 
under Italian sovereignty. When Signor Orlando 
and Baron Sonnino awoke to the fact that they 
had been misled, and that the President was 
adamant in refusing to admit Italy's claim to 
Fiume in spite of the rule as to self-determina- 
tion, they were in a sad predicament. They had 
started a fire of sentiment among the Italian 
people which had spread beyond their control. 
They had no alternative but to continue to 
struggle for Italian control over the little city, 
hoping that they might through some compro- 
mise succeed in obtaining what all Italy was 
clamoring for, because failure meant the over- 
throw of the Orlando Ministry. One can imagine 
the feelings of the Italian delegation toward 
those who had encouraged them to assume a 
position from which there had been left no way 
to retreat. 

The negotiations had continued through con- 
fidential channels and in the Council of Four 
until the time approached when the Germans 
were to receive the treaty of peace. As a last 
resort Signor Orlando let it be understood that, 
unless the Council conceded Italy's right to 
Fiume, the Italian delegation had no other course 

[ 114 ] 



Orlando 

than to withdraw from the Conference. It was, 
I think, a threat made in desperation and was 
never intended to be carried out. It, however, 
had the opposite effect on Mr. Wilson from that 
which was intended. It aroused his ire and 
made him stubborn. He determined to meet it 
in a way which was most unusual. 

On the evening of April 23d the President 
issued a public statement on Fiume and Italy's 
unjustifiable claim to the city, which was in fact 
if not in purpose an appeal to the Italian people 
over the head of their Government. The state- 
ment was temperate, well-balanced, and logically 
sound, but, issued at a time when feeling in Italy 
was at fever heat, it caused a tremendous 
sensation. Doubtless President Wilson, remem- 
bering the unparalleled enthusiasm of his recep- 
tion in Italy when he visited that country in 
January, believed that his popularity was suffi- 
cient to change the tide of public sentiment and 
that the Italian people would perceive the in- 
justice of the claim to Fiume because he declared 
that it was unjust. The storm of abuse and insult 
with which the statement was received from one 
end of Italy to the other must have opened the 
President's eyes to the fact, which had not been 

[115] 



Orlando 

hidden from others, that his popularity with the 
peoples of Europe was rapidly receding, and that 
they were no longer willing to accept his declara- 
tions as the utterances of the inspired leader 
of international thought, the apostle of a new 
gospel. 

Signor Orlando was very angry at this attempt 
to rouse Italian public opinion against his Fiurne 
policy, for so he interpreted Mr. Wilson's state- 
ment. He issued a counter-statement, and on 
the 24th departed from Paris for Rome, as did 
Baron Sonnino. However, the Italian statesmen, 
after their anger had cooled, and after they had 
had time to consider the possible consequences 
upon Italian interests of their continued absence 
from the Conference, swallowed their pride and 
returned to Paris. Convinced that Italy was 
solidly behind him, and that the President had 
failed in his appeal and was no longer in favor 
with the Italian people, Signor Orlando resumed 
his seat in the Council, giving no evidence that 
anything had happened to mar the cordial 
relations which existed between him and his 
associates. 

This incident showed the volatile tempera- 
ment of the Italian Premier more clearly than 

[ H6 ] 



Orlando 

anything else that occurred at Paris. Possessed 
of the emotional intensity of his race, the sudden 
and extraordinary action of the President, which 
he construed as a personal affront, made him 
furious, as it might have done a man of a more 
phlegmatic nature. On the impulse of the mo- 
ment, he left Paris, intending undoubtedly not 
to return. Then, as his rage subsided under the 
soothing influence of popular approval, and as he 
reviewed more calmly the situation, he decided 
that it would be impolitic to remain away from 
the council table where the terms of peace with 
Austria were to be drafted or to be absent when 
the treaty was delivered to the German pleni- 
potentiaries. It is said that added pressure was 
exerted on the Italians by a threat to abandon 
entirely the terms of the Pact of London unless 
they returned immediately to Paris. I have no 
doubt, however, that Signor Orlando inwardly 
burned with indignation at the President and at 
those who had, during the early days of the 
negotiation, encouraged the belief that the Presi- 
dent would assent to the cession of Fiume. 

All the clandestine interviews and intrigues 
had come to naught; and when the Italian del- 
egates returned to Paris, they were not resumed. 

[ 117 ] 



Orlando 

Signor Orlando and Baron Sonnino were too sa- 
gacious to pursue again a course which had ended 
so disastrously. As an eminent Italian diplomat, 
one of the Premier's close friends, said to me: 
"We know now that we dealt from the first with 
the wrong people. They held out false hopes. 
They did not tell us the truth. We relied on their 
advice, and now see where we are! We won't 
make that mistake again." 

However, the damage had been done and 
could not be undone. The public mind in Italy 
had been so inflamed that nothing but Italian 
control of Fiume would satisfy the nation. With 
that practically impossible, in view of the un- 
compromising attitude of the President, the 
overthrow of the Orlando Government was only 
a question of time unless something unforeseen 
occurred to affect the situation. But by neither 
word nor manner did Signor Orlando show his 
feelings. Even up to the time when the defeat 
of his Government was certain to take place 
within a few days, and it was substantially 
settled that Signor Tittoni would succeed him 
at Paris as the head of the Italian delegation, 
the cheerfulness and good humor of the retiring 
Premier never forsook him. He accepted his ap- 

[118] 



Orlando 

proaching political overthrow with a fine spirit. 
In these trying circumstances he was the same 
pleasant, smiling gentleman that he had been 
during the early sessions of the Council of Ten. 

Just how far Signor Orlando was influenced in 
his policy as to Fiume by Baron Sonnino, I do 
not know. There were many competent ob- 
servers who were disposed to lay the responsi- 
bility for it on the latter's shoulders, as he was 
a past-master in arranging settlements through 
secret agreements. No one in the Council of Ten 
was so adept as he in negotiations of that sort. 
Persuasive and plausible, with a manner that 
impressed his listener with the sense of being 
the specially favored recipient of important 
information, Baron Sonnino was unquestionably 
successful in winning to his support those who 
were susceptible to this species of flattery, and 
who had a generous opinion of their own 
importance. Where the Baron failed was in his 
overvaluation of the support which he won in 
this way. Had that not been the case, the Italian 
plan in regard to the Adriatic would have been 
successful and the Orlando Government, of which 
Baron Sonnino was so influential a member, 
would have been stronger than ever at Rome. 

[ H9 1 



Orlando 

What has been said of Baron Sonnino is 
not by way of criticism of him as a man, but of 
the school of diplomacy to which he belonged. 
The pity is that all the intrigues and secretive- 
ness, from which the Peace Conference suffered 
so grievously, did not end as the Fiume affair 
ended. If the Conference had done nothing else 
than discredit diplomacy of that sort, it would 
have been well worth while. Unfortunately, 
others who practiced similar methods were able 
to form combinations and make bargains to the 
mutual and material advantage of their coun- 
tries. Baron Sonnino's reputation as a clever 
diplomat and negotiator who was credited — I 
think unjustly — with hiding his real objects did 
not help him, while other statesmen, less known 
in diplomacy and possibly less frank in purpose, 
engaged in the same practices that he did with 
impunity and with frequent success. 

The fact is, when one who knows what went on 
in Paris outside the recorded proceedings con- 
siders the months during which the Conference 
was in session, he cannot deny that there was a 
lot of hypocrisy practiced, a lot of pretense about 
doing things openly and stating things candidly 
when secrecy and intrigue were only too evident. 

[ 120 ] 



Orlando 

One might not like Baron Sonnino's policies and 
might feel that they flouted the conscience of the 
nations and were out of harmony with the spirit 
of the times, but no one could charge him with 
being a hypocrite. He was in fact far less blame- 
worthy than some who criticized him. Whatever 
may have been thought of the Italian Minister 
of Foreign Affairs by these self-righteous negotia- 
tors, he was a more reliable man than they, a 
better man with whom to deal. He was without 
question an able diplomat, possessing poise and 
sagacity, while as a companion he was all that 
could be desired. 

Neither Signor Orlando nor Baron Sonnino 
took as active a part in the debates on general 
questions which came before the Council of Ten 
as did the representatives of the United States, 
France, and Great Britain. Signor Orlando was 
always ready to give his opinion on such subjects 
when asked, and he did it with the clearness of 
statement and logical presentation of reasons 
of which he was master. 'When, however, the 
question was one which had to do with the 
national interests of Italy, he appeared to be 
eager to express his views, and seized the first 
opportunity to address the Council. It was also 

[ 121 1 



Orlando 

observable that in any discussion which touched 
his government or people even so remotely as 
the establishment of a precedent or policy which 
might be later invoked against them, Signor 
Orlando spoke with greater earnestness and much 
more emphatically than he did on other occa- 
sions. 

This was evidence of a fact, already mentioned, 
that the Italian statesmen concentrated their 
entire effort on the advancement of the material 
welfare of their country. It is impossible to deny 
that Italy, however favorably or sympathetically 
her course may be viewed, entered the war on 
conditions which in the event of victory by the 
Allies ensured her future territorial and economic 
expansion. She sought a good bargain, and Great 
Britain and France, in view of the conditions 
existing in April, 1915, were forced to accede to 
her terms. That same dominant purpose was 
apparent throughout the negotiations at Paris. 
Having secured to a large extent the rewards 
promised a month before Italy declared war 
against Austria-Hungary, which were embodied 
in the Pact of London, the Italian representatives 
at the Peace Conference sought further advan- 
tages by advancing new claims. Of course these 

[ 122 J 



Orlando 

claims were selfish and not based primarily on 
international justice, but in that they did not 
differ from the claims of other Allied Govern- 
ments. The difference lay, as I see it, in the fact 
that the Italians urged their claims frankly and 
without subterfuge, while others, seeking to hide 
their nationalistic purposes, demanded that their 
claims should be recognized on the ground that 
to do so would make for the future peace of the 
world and for the welfare of the inhabitants 
of the territories the possession of which they 
coveted. 

While Signor Orlando had taken part in secret 
negotiations as to Fiume and had endeavored to 
obtain his object by bringing personal influence 
to bear on others, it always seemed to me that 
the secretive method employed contradicted the 
frankness and openness which he otherwise dis- 
played. He was certainly not by nature disposed 
to deceive as to his purpose. Possibly he, and 
Baron Sonnino as well, was too frank, from the 
point of view of expediency. In any event, ap- 
parent frankness, seasoned by assertions of high 
moral purpose and garnished with unctuous 
precepts and platitudes, succeeded where real 
frankness failed. To admit openly that one was 

[ 123 1 



Orlando 

impelled by selfish motives was an offense to 
those who proclaimed their own altruism, what- 
ever their true motives might have been. It was 
not playing the game according to the rules. 
The truth is there was at Paris too much lip 
virtue and too little heart virtue in the settle- 
ments that were reached. 

The Italian aspirations conflicted more with 
those of France than with those of any other of 
the Great Powers. In the Balkans, and to an 
extent in Asia Minor, they came into direct con- 
flict in the endeavor of each country to extend 
its sphere of commercial influence in those re- 
gions. It was when these questions were being 
considered that M. Clemenceau and Signor 
Orlando crossed swords in debate. While I 
think that The Tiger's domineering manner and 
sarcastic comments had a subduing effect on the 
Italian, he replied with vigor and defended his 
position with skillful parry and counter-thrust, in 
spite of the interruptions of the older statesman, 
who was or pretended to be very much out of 
temper. 

As a rule the impression made by the debate 
was that for logic and force of reasoning Signor 
Orlando had the better of the argument. He 

[ 124 ] 



Orlando 

seemed to know his case more thoroughly and to 
present it more convincingly than did his French 
adversary. In fact, if, the latter had not been 
the great personality that he was, he would often 
have been forced to acknowledge defeat. But he 
never did. Clemenceau defeated was unthink- 
able to Clemenceau, and that attitude had un- 
questionably a potent influence on his associates. 
As a consequence Signor Orlando did not triumph 
as frequently as he otherwise might have done 
in his word combats with the fierce old cham- 
pion of France, who treated him — I believe 
intentionally — with far less consideration than 
he did Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George. 

Though Signor Orlando possessed admirable 
traits of character and exhibited a skill in debate 
which none of his confreres excelled, he was 
nevertheless the least influential of the Big Four 
and had the least to do with formulating the 
terms of peace with Germany. This was doubt- 
less due in large measure to the relative military, 
naval, and financial strength of the Great Powers 
represented in the Council of Four. Comparison 
by this standard — which, it is to be regretted, 
was the principal standard in weighing influ- 
ence at the Peace Conference — tended to place 

[ 125 ] 



Orlando 

Italy in the background and to subordinate the 
views of her statesmen. I know also that some 
felt that the Italian Government had driven too 
sharp a bargain with the Entente in 1915, and 
was now demanding more than its pound of 
flesh, in spite of the small part, which the more 
critical in Europe asserted, Italy had taken in 
the later months of the struggle. There seemed 
to be a disposition to repudiate the Italian claims 
or at least to reject many of them. It was with 
evident reluctance that France and Great Britain 
conceded their treaty obligations. Neither of 
them vigorously supported Italy when her 
claims were urged. The attitude seemed to be 
that of tolerance for a nation which had not won 
by arms a right to a voice in the decisions, but 
was by agreement entitled to it. It was therefore 
especially fortunate for the Italian people that 
they had in Signor Orlando so well-trained a 
statesman, so talented an advocate, and so keen 
a logician to represent them at the Conference. 
He could not be and was not ignored. Another 
representative less able might have been. 

A review of the foregoing estimate of the 
personalities of the four statesmen composing 

[ 12G ] 



Orlando 

the Council of the Heads of States, in whose 
hands, it may be said, rested the political and 
economic future of the world, shows that they 
each possessed qualities of mind which fitted 
them to be leaders of men, but which did not 
necessarily equip them to act as negotiators. I 
think candor compels one to admit, however 
much he may admire the superior attainments 
of the Big Four, that it was a misfortune for 
the nations that the actual formulation of the 
treaty with Germany was assumed by them. 

In the first place, the only one of them who 
had the legal or diplomatic experience necessary 
for such a task was Signor Orlando, the least 
influential of the Council, and the one who was 
handicapped by not knowing English, in which 
language the proceedings were chiefly conducted. 
Of the others, President Wilson thought like a 
professor advocating a pet theory and expanded 
his philosophic ideas in a series of epigrams, 
which sounded well, but which were difficult of 
practical application, if not of definition. Mr. 
Lloyd George, who lacked the background which 
only a thorough student of history could have, 
was an opportunist, who jumped to conclusions 
without going through the reasoning processes 

[ 127 ] 



Orlando 

which are necessary for wise statesmanship. 
Careless in thought, he was equally careless in 
speech. Accuracy of expression, so essential in 
the final settlement of an international question, 
was not one of his attainments. M. Clemenceau 
never bothered himself with the actual wording 
of a decision. The general principle was all that 
interested him. The technical phraseology he 
left to the Secretariat General, directing them to 
send the decisions of the Council of Ten to the 
drafting committee. A more unsystematic and 
loose way of conducting business of such mo- 
ment can hardly be imagined. To term it in- 
expert is a mild characterization. 

To other delegates, appreciative from previous 
experience of the importance of exact and definite 
expression, this lax and haphazard procedure 
caused grave concern, though it did not seem to 
disturb any members of the Council of Four. 
Fortunately, the drafting committee included 
such trained international jurists as Dr. James 
Brown Scott, for the United States; Mr. — now 
Sir — Cecil J. B. Hurst, of the British Foreign 
Office; and M. Henri Fromageot, of the French 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. To their legal 
knowledge, carefulness, and industry are due the 

[ 128 ] 



Orlando 

phraseology of the majority of the articles of 
the treaty and their orderly arrangement. One 
dreads to think what the document would have 
looked like if it had not passed through their 
experienced hands. 

If I were asked to state the strongest motives 
influencing the conduct of each member of the 
Council of Four during the Peace Conference, I 
would state them as follows: M. Clemenceau 
— protection of France from future German 
attack, indemnification for her war losses, and 
the perpetuation of her international power in 
the world ; President Wilson — the creation of a 
league of nations to make permanent the terms 
of peace, to prevent war, and to supervise inter- 
national relations in the future; Mr. Lloyd 
George — the satisfaction of British public opin- 
ion, measured in terms of political success and 
commercial advantage; and Signor Orlando — 
the expansion of Italy's territorial sovereignty 
and economic power. 

Of these controlling motives that of President 
Wilson was on a higher ethical plane than that 
of any of his colleagues. He unquestionably 
felt that a great moral duty rested on the victori- 
ous nations to make great wars impossible for 

[ 129 ] 



Orlando 

the future. He believed that this could be done 
by organizing the peoples of the world into a 
league of nations. It was an idea which appealed 
to his intellectual conception that he was devoted 
to the welfare of mankind, and to his firm convic- 
tion that he was destined to be the leader of the 
nations, the commanding figure in this feder- 
ation of the world. The theory of the proposed 
organization was an appealing one. There was 
little that could be urged against the general 
principle of union for the sake of peace. It was 
in the application of the principle and in attempt- 
ing to make the theory workable in practice that 
the difficulty lay. The President should have 
realized — possibly he did — that unless the 
Great Powers subordinated their selfish and 
materialistic interests to the altruistic purposes 
which impelled him to concentrate his efforts 
on the drafting and adoption of the covenant, 
their support of the League would be merely the 
expression of a moral sentiment, provided it did 
not constitute a practical agency to protect them 
in settlements which satisfied their selfish desires. 
Consider and answer these questions, which 
are significant as to the spirit which prevailed 
among the Great Powers: Why did the French 

[ 130 1 



Orlando 

statesmen hesitate to accept the covenant until 
an added guaranty against German aggression 
had been substantially agreed upon with Presi- 
dent Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George? Why did 
Italy threaten to withdraw from the Conference 
and not to become a member of the League until 
a favorable settlement as to Fiume had been 
reached, even though it had nothing to do with 
the treaty with Germany? Why did the Japanese 
let it be known that they would not join the 
League unless the German rights in Shantung 
were ceded to their empire? 

The manifest answers to these questions show 
that selfish motives were superior to moral 
obligations with the European Powers and with 
Japan. The attitude seems to have been: Give 
us all that we demand and we will aid in building 
a wall for the protection of that which we have 
obtained. 

These incidents, with others which might be 
cited, are manifestations of the weak influence 
that abstract justice and the desire for the com- 
mon good exerted on the Great Powers, and 
of the impracticability of relying unreservedly on 
their support of joint action, through an inter- 
national organization, which was in any way 

[ 131 ] 



Orlando 

detrimental to their material interests. From the 
theoretical standpoint of the moral philosopher, 
good faith and a sense of justice are irresistible 
forces in the relations between nations, but 
practically — and we must look to the practical 
in the world of the present — selfishness is, and I 
fear will continue to be, the supreme impulse of 
nations in their dealings with one another, until 
mankind is morally regenerated. 

If the treaty of peace with Germany 'is criti- 
cally analyzed in order to determine the motives 
which found expression in the settlements con- 
tained in its hundreds of articles, I do not. think 
the brief statement of these motives which I have 
made will appear to be prejudiced or unjust. 
From the treaty terms there is much that can be 
learned of the psychology of the statesmen who 
were most influential in formulating them. Such 
a study, if it is made carefully and impartially, 
will, I believe, supplement and confirm this re- 
view of the characters, the aims, the successes 
and the failures of the Big Four' of the Peace 
Conference at Paris. In later years, when the 
results of their labors find actual expression, 
historians may render a different verdict as to 
these men, but from the viewpoint of thepresent 

[ 132 J 



Orlando 

I can reach no other than that which it has been 
my endeavor to state without favor and with 
entire candor. 

The negotiations at Paris may be described as 
a conflict between altruism and selfishness, be- 
tween the ideal and the material, between the 
theoretical and the practical, between principle 
and expediency; a conflict in which President 
Wilson, representing the higher standards, was 
outmaneuvered by the forces of self-interest 
and opportunism. The consequence was a treaty 
in which national rather than international 
interests are emphasized, and through which are 
scattered seeds of dissatisfaction and discord. 
No one imbued with the longing for a peace 
founded on justice can study the treaty of peace 
with Germany without a keen sense of disap- 
pointment as to certain of the terms of settle- 
ment or without a feeling of apprehension as to 
the future. The treaty restored a legal state of 
peace among the nations ; in that was its virtue, 
for it responded to the supreme longing and need 
of the world. As for the League of Nations, 
which is to be an instrument of performance as 
well as the guardian of this great international 
compact, it is charged with giving permanency 
[ 133 ] 



Orlando 

to settlements which, in view of the nature of 
some of them, invite modification or annulment. 
Unless these defects are remedied, unless the 
principle of the equality of nations is recognized, 
and unless legal justice is emphasized, the Peace 
of Versailles will be in many of its provisions 
temporary and not permanent. 



I 134 ] 



IMPRESSIONS OF OTHER STATESMEN 
at the Peace Conference 



• IMPRESSIONS 

A man who has taken a prominent part in public 
affairs is naturally subjected to critical observa- 
tion by those who come in contact with him. 
There exists a popular belief, gained from various 
sources, as to his character and attainments, 
which one is curious to test by personal ac- 
quaintance. What is it that has given this man 
a reputation for greatness, for shrewdness, for 
wisdom? Wherein lie his powers of leadership? 
Has he the traits and qualities with which he is 
credited? Does he possess weaknesses, of which 
the man in the street knows nothing? Is the 
popular judgment concerning him accurate? 
What is his real personality? 

It is with such questions that one approaches a 
leader in the world of thought or action. Almost 
invariably on first acquaintance an impression 
is formed of the man, which may be strengthened 
or weakened by subsequent intercourse or by 
personally acquired knowledge of his purposes, 
his motives, his mentality, and his mode of 
action. Such impressions are of value, because 
unconsciously they are critical unless personal 

[ 137 1 



Impressions 

likes and dislikes and the sentimentality of the 
observer are permitted to control his judgment. 
Impressions, therefore, seem to be worth record- 
ing, since they will confirm, modify, or deny the 
popular estimate of a man by one who at least 
has had the opportunity of personal contact, 
through which the little things which enter into 
character are frequently disclosed, those little 
tilings which the general public cannot know 
and so miss an important factor in the valuation 
of a man's qualities of mind. 

And yet it ought to be remembered that 
records of this sort are records of impressions 
rather than of reasoned opinions. They are not 
based on intimate association with the subject or 
on long and careful observation. They are not 
convictions gained by comparison of known facts 
and personal experiences. They spring from the 
brain without going through the slow process of 
analysis and deduction. Personal sentiment, to 
an extent, is mingled with observation and knowl- 
edge to produce an impression, and the latter 
is as fallible as sentiment always is when it forms 
the basis of opinion. In a sense, therefore, an 
impression is a psychological phenomenon rather 
than the product of the reason. It is a "snap- 

[ 138 ] 



Impressions 

shot" of a man rather than a "time-exposure" 
of him. It is an outline lacking the detail of a 
finished portrait. 

I am not sure how far an impression is affected 
by preconceived ideas of a man gathered from 
his record of achievement and his popular reputa- 
tion for ability, though it is undoubtedly affected 
by them. Probably the influence varies in each 
case. But I think that it may be assumed that, if 
the impression conforms to a previous conception 
of character, the impression becomes almost a 
conviction; while, if it differs in marked degree 
from what one has been led to believe concerning 
a man's character, the effect is to deepen the 
personal satisfaction or disappointment, as the 
case may be, and to cause a feeling that the im- 
pression approaches nearer the truth than the 
evidence contradicting it, although the nature of 
the evidence is an important factor in determin- 
ing its rejection. 

This tendency to rely more upon an impres- 
sion gained from personal contact, however 
slight, than upon popular opinion and knowledge 
of the previous career and accomplishments of a 
man, is normal. It may not be the soundest 
basis for accurately estimating personality, but 
\ 139 1 



Impressions 

it is very human and much more satisfying than 
the careful weighing of facts which are generally 
known. Reputations, in any event, are based not 
so much upon what men think and do, as upon 
what the world believes that they think and do; 
and, since a public estimate of a man is founded 
on belief, it is more easily overthrown by a per- 
sonal impression than if it rested on proven facts. 
In many cases the personality of a man, to whom 
public opinion imputes greatness, assumes heroic 
proportions as the myth is increasingly accepted, 
so that a first impression, which does not con- 
form to the public belief, is a distinct shock 
and disposes the observer to reject all the evi- 
dences of greatness when, in fact, only certain 
ones are contradicted. This is a danger which 
should be recognized and guarded against in 
valuing the recorded impressions of men. It 
would be folly to place them on the same plane 
as estimates of character founded on an analysis 
of established facts. They may be contributions 
to the general knowledge, but their worth is 
frequently affected by circumstance and the 
temper of the observer. 

With these comments concerning the nature 
and value of personal impressions, it is. my pur- 

[ 140 1 



Impressions 

pose to state briefly how certain men, who repre- 
sented their nations at the Peace Conference at 
Paris, impressed me, leaving to the reader the task 
of determining the conformity or disagreement of 
my impressions with the common estimate of 
the characters of these men, whose careers and 
public services have made them conspicuous 
figures in the history of the period in which we 
live. 



[ 141 



VENIZELOS 

No man who attended the Peace Conference 
aroused more general interest because of the 
part that he had played in the war or won 
more friends because of his personality than did 
Eleftherios Venizelos, the Greek Premier and the 
actual ruler of the Greek nation. I found that 
nearly every one was anxious to meet this leader 
whose personal influence had been persistently 
exerted until it had turned the scales in Greece 
against the Germans and in favor of the Allies. 
There was a natural curiosity to see a man who 
had been able to accomplish so much in spite of 
the difficulties that he had to overcome. Success, 
such as his had been in the field of international 
politics, confers a distinction which even the more 
cynical cannot ignore. 

The career of M. Venizelos from his majority 
to his fifty -fifth year, in which he was when 
he attended the Peace Conference, had been a 
stormy one. He had been for a third of a century 
engaged in one rebellion after another against 
the Ottoman Empire which had possessed su- 

[ 142 ] 



Venizelos 

zerain powers over his native island of Crete. 
He had more than once retired to the mountains 
and from their fastnesses defied the imperial 
authorities. He had shown a boldness in urging 
his demands and an inflexible spirit in the face 
of disappointments which made him preeminent 
as a patriot and as a revolutionist. Revolution 
with him was a creed as well as a profession. All 
his energies and talents had been devoted to 
winning the political freedom of his countrymen 
and the unification of the Greek people. 

With the beginning of the World War his 
sympathies were enlisted on the side of the 
Allies. Whether this was due to far-seeing 
statesmanship or to the fact that the Ottoman 
Empire, against which he had been so long in 
conflict, was allied to the Central Powers, I do 
not know, but I believe that his inveterate hatred 
of the Turk was the chief influence which induced 
him to become openly active in the endeavor to 
persuade his country to enter the war on the side 
of the Allies. If they were defeated, his hope of a 
Greater Greece would vanish. His success in this 
endeavor, which he obtained only by revolt 
against his own Government, gained for him 
personally the favor of the statesmen of the 

[ 143 ] 



Venizelos 

Allied Powers, so that he was able to count with 
substantial certainty on their support of his aims 
at the Peace Conference and to have an in- 
fluential voice in the inner councils at Paris. 
The views of M. Venizelos were, I believe, given 
greater weight by the Big Four than those 
of any other single delegate at Paris, while the 
confidence which he inspired made less difficult 
his task of obtaining the terms which he desired 
to have inserted in the treaties with Turkey and 
with Bulgaria. 

In spite of the vicissitudes and hardships 
which M. Venizelos had endured during his 
turbulent public life, he did not look the part 
of a revolutionary leader. His appearance was, 
on the contrary, that of a sensitive student. He 
might have been a professor in some great 
European university spending his days in inter- 
preting the unearthed treasures of Crete's pre- 
historic civilization or in poring over faded 
manuscripts containing the Hellenic philosophies 
of ancient days. Of medium height and with 
little superfluous flesh, with hair and beard white 
and thin suggesting premature old age, M. Veni- 
zelos was not distinguished in form, feature, or 
bearing. His complexion was ruddy, his eyes 

[ 144 ] 



Venizelos 

bright and clear, and his mouth gentle with 
generous mobile lips. He stooped in walking and 
his attitude in standing was shrinking, almost 
apologetic. One could hardly avoid the feeling 
that here was a man too modest, if not too timid, 
to be a great intellectual force in world affairs, 
too simple of soul to mingle in the jealousies and 
intrigues of European politics, and too idealistic 
in thought to pit his mind against the material- 
ism and cleverness of the trained diplomats and 
political leaders assembled at Paris to draw a 
new map of Europe. 

This mildness of appearance and manner was 
further enhanced by M. Venizelos's smile and 
voice. When he smiled, his whole face lighted up 
with benevolence and friendliness. His smile 
was his great charm, a charm that was empha- 
sized by the soft and gentle tones of his voice. 
Everything about him seemed to diffuse good- 
ness. He appeared to be living in an atmosphere 
of virtuous thought and kindly purpose. Imag- 
ination could easily picture him as patient and 
enduring, as the unresisting martyr of a great 
cause, but not as indignant and fiery, not as the 
intrepid leader of insurgent bands. His whole 
personality in fact contradicted his record. 
[ 145 1 



Venizelos 

Though these pronounced characteristics in- 
spired good-will and invited sympathy and sup- 
port, one could not forget what his life had 
been. The general impression created by his 
personality undoubtedly was that here was a 
man to be trusted implicitly, a man whose sim- 
plicity of mind and nobility of purpose would not 
permit him to resort to intrigue. To one, how- 
ever, familiar with the shrewdness shown by 
M. Venizelos as Premier of Greece during the 
Balkan Wars and later as the head of a revo- 
lutionary government during the World War, 
there was the feeling that beneath his apparent 
innocence of craftiness existed a keen perception 
of strategic advantages and a readiness to seize 
political opportunities, which were not entirely 
compatible with the thoughts aroused by per- 
sonal contact with him. 

It seemed to me during those days at Paris 
that it was almost heretical to have this feel- 
ing of uncertainty as to the real character of 
M. Venizelos in view of the universal esteem and 
confidence in which he was held. The truth is 
that I tried to reason myself out of it, for it 
seemed to be inconceivable that others could be 
mistaken in their estimate of his qualities. The 

[ 146 ] 



Venizelos 

impression, nevertheless, persisted. His appear- 
ance and manner seemed to deny the facts of 
his career, while the knowledge of the facts 
would not be denied in forming an impression 
of the man. In a social way intercourse with him 
was a pleasure, but, when it came to discussing 
with him questions affecting Greece and to con- 
sidering the statements on which he based his 
arguments, there was a suspicion, to say the 
least, of the plausible and mild-mannered Greek 
statesman which remained in spite of his personal 
attraction and the apparent genuineness of his 
altruism. 

It is very obvious, from an examination of the 
terms of the Treaty of Neuilly and the Treaty 
of Sevres, that M. Venizelos was successful in 
winning, not only the confidence, but also the 
active cooperation of the negotiators who repre- 
sented the Allied Governments in the formula- 
tion of those documents. The settlements were 
wholly favorable to the Venizelos policy of 
" Greek unity" and to the desires of the Greek 
expansionists, favorable to the point of extrava- 
gance. It is not my purpose to discuss the exten- 
sive territorial acquisitions obtained by Greece 
under the treaties except to point out that in 
[ 147 ] 



Venizelos 

much of the territory the Greek populations were 
in the minority, particularly in Eastern Thrace 
and Northern Macedonia, and that there were 
no compensating economic or geographic reasons 
for the settlements. During the general dis- 
cussion of the Turkish and Bulgarian peace 
terms, in which the American Commissioners at 
Paris took part, though the United States had 
not been at war with either country, the Ameri- 
can position was frankly adverse to the Greek 
claims, not because of any unfriendliness for 
Greece or of friendliness for her enemies, but 
because the cession of areas inhabited by large 
hostile populations creates conditions which 
threaten the future peace of the world. That 
position was sound, as time will demonstrate. 

Except for the personal influence of M. 
Venizelos, I am convinced that the extension of 
Greek sovereignty would not have been so great 
as it was under the treaties. What he asked was 
granted because he asked it. His personality and 
the reliance placed on his judgment dominated 
the negotiations and were sufficient to overcome 
the practical arguments urged against compli- 
ance with his wishes. The consequence was the 
creation of a new and greater Greece embracing 

[ 148 ] 



Venizelos 

within its territory the shores and islands of the 
iEgean Sea as well as Eastern Thrace, a Greece 
which, by uniting the Greek cities and settle- 
ments on the islands and shores of the iEgean, 
made of it a Greek sea, but a Greece which, by 
this extension of territorial sovereignty to sepa- 
rated coasts, became a country impossible of 
military defense and unstable politically on ac- 
count of ethnic animosities and of lack of 
economic interdependence. 

It is possible that my impression of M. Ven- 
izelos would have changed and been more in 
harmony with the common opinion of him, had it 
not been for this apparent appetite for territory. 
I found it hard to believe that a man of his 
experience in public affairs, and especially one 
who had been an active participant in the Balkan 
quarrels where nationality has always played a 
most conspicuous part, could be convinced in his 
own mind that it would make for the future 
peace and prosperity of Greece to expand her 
boundaries to so great an extent, since it was 
sure to arouse the bitter enmity of the Bulgars 
and Turks and invite them to war against their 
conquerors at the first favorable opportunity, 
while the defensive strength of Greece would be 

[ 149 ] 



Venizelos 

materially weakened, unless it became a naval 
power, which appeared to be substantially im- 
possible. It seemed to be casting fresh fuel into 
the Balkan furnace where the fires of war are 
always smouldering beneath the ashes of past 
conflicts. 

What was the reason that M. Venizelos, seem- 
ingly a sagacious and wise statesman who was 
keenly alive to the dangers of perpetuating the 
hatreds and jealousies of ambitious nationalities, 
adopted this policy of over-expansion of Greek 
territory, which even to the superficial student 
of world politics appeared to threaten the fu- 
ture peace of Southeastern Europe and the 
sovereignty of Greece? I do not know. It is a 
question which offers a field for speculation as 
to the motives and intellectual attainments of 
M. Venizelos upon which one may well hesitate 
to enter. 

Apostle of " the unification of Greece " as he 
had always been, and an active agent in throwing 
off the yoke of alien authority from his compa- 
triots of the island of Crete, he may have been 
obsessed with the idea that Greeks everywhere 
should be joined to the mother country by 
uniting under Greek sovereignty the territories 

[ 150 ] 



Venizelos 

where they dwell even though they are a minority 
of the population. The memories of Macedon 
and Byzantium may have inspired the hope of 
a new Greek Empire clothed with power and 
destined to revive the ancient glories of the 
Greek race. 

„ It may have been that he had made promises 
and announced policies of an all-inclusive Greek 
State which he could not revoke or modify with- 
out losing prestige and political power at home, 
and that to retain these he was willing to risk the 
consequences of a course, the wisdom of which 
was contradicted by the logic of recent events in 
the history of the Balkans. 

I am loath to accept this latter reason because 
it is open to the interpretation that M. Venizelos 
was willing to adopt an unwise policy in order to 
perpetuate his political control by satisfying the 
ambitions of the people of " Old Greece" and by 
gaining the support of the Greek inhabitants of 
the annexed territories. On the other hand, 
political promises made under the stress of im- 
pelling circumstance frequently bind men to a 
course of action which they would under other 
conditions prefer to avoid, but which they feel 
in honor bound to continue. It is one of the evils 

[ 151 1 



Venizelos 

of opportunism which an honorable man finds 
hard to avoid. 

If, however, the motive for the Greek Pre- 
mier's urgent appeal at Paris for the union to 
Greece proper of the Greek-inhabited areas about 
the iEgean Sea and in Macedonia was his con- 
viction that unification was for the welfare of his 
nation, the conclusion is that he was less wise and 
more visionary than he was reputed to be. 

In fact, when one analyzes the record of events, 
there seems to be only one of two conclusions, 
either M. Venizelos was an unwise statesman or 
he was a politician who endeavored to preserve 
his political life by responding to the impulses of 
the national pride of his countrymen and of the 
racial affinity of those of Greek blood. In either 
case the popular estimate of his character is 
impaired. 

The part played by M. Venizelos in bringing 
Greece into the war was made possible by the 
presence of Allied forces in the Saloniki region. 
The Greek Government had prior to that time 
maintained neutrality in the war, and even went 
so far in avoiding conflict as to permit Bulgarian 
occupation of Greek territory without resistance. 
To what extent the influence of King Constantine 

[ 152 ] 



Venizelos 

and his German queen induced this policy is of 
little importance, though there can be no doubt 
that the Allies were disposed to credit it with 
chief importance. Outside of this influence, to 
which the pusillanimous surrender of territory 
gave color, the arguments in favor of a policy 
of neutrality were strong and convincing. Serbia, 
in spite of the unsurpassed valor and sacrifices of 
her people, had been occupied by the conquering 
armies of Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary. The 
Serbian nation had endured untold agonies at the 
hands of the invaders. The Allied Governments, 
though vigorously demanding that the Greeks 
aid the Serbs in the unequal struggle, would not 
agree to send troops or munitions to Greece, 
although that country was insufficiently manned 
and equipped to conduct a war of magnitude. In 
these circumstances King Constantine and his 
advisers declined to depart from their neutral 
attitude on the ground that Greece was not 
strong enough without foreign aid to resist the 
armies of the Central Alliance, and that to make 
war unaided and without adequate military 
preparations would mean that their country 
would suffer the fate of Serbia and the Greek 
people would undergo the horrors of an invasion 

I 153 ] 



Venizelos 

by an utterly ruthless foe. It would seem that in 
the circumstances, even if the King had not been 
a brother-in-law of the German Emperor, the 
policy adopted was in the best interests of the 
Greek nation; and apparently the majority of 
the people favored this policy of neutrality. 

The Allies were deeply, though I think un- 
reasonably, incensed at this attitude of the Royal 
Government and sought opportunity to force 
Greece to take up arms against the Central 
Powers. Finding that M. Venizelos and his 
adherents, who were deeply interested in the 
Greeks outside of " Old Greece," were in favor of 
the country abandoning neutrality and taking 
up arms against the Central Powers, the Allied 
Governments finally sent forces to Saloniki and 
practically took possession of the port and 
neighboring territory in conjunction with the 
Greeks who favored uniting with them in the 
war. This action on the part of the Allies resulted 
in the establishment, under the leadership of M. 
Venizelos, of an independent Provisional Govern- 
ment for the Saloniki region, which increased its 
territorial control with the northward and east- 
ward advance of the Allied lines. The successes 
of the Allies on the various battle fronts and the 
[ 154 ] 



Venizelos 

arrival of reinforcements in Greece seemed to 
prove the wisdom of the Venizelos policy of 
revolution, which was confirmed by his final 
return to political power at Athens, and the 
departure of the royal family from Greece. 

As far as one is able to judge from the progress 
of events and from the subsequent restoration 
of Constantine to the throne, the people of " Old 
Greece," who had witnessed with apprehension 
the terrible sufferings of the Serbian nation, were 
never favorable to their country's abandoning its 
neutrality and becoming a participant in the war. 
The majority seemed to be opposed to the 
Venizelos party which held its power by grace 
of the Allied Governments rather than by will 
of the Greek nation. However, the defeat of the 
Bulgars, Turks, and Austrians was so complete 
that the Venizelos policy was vindicated and his 
leadership was again accepted by the nation — 
at least it was assumed to be accepted — and he 
came to the Paris Conference as the recognized 
master of the situation. 

While the Cretan statesman, thus in control 
of the policies of his country through the defeat 
of the Central Powers, entered upon his duties as 
a negotiator holding the confidence and friend- 

[ 155 ] 



Venizelos 

ship of the Allies because of his devotion to their 
cause under doubtful, if not adverse, conditions, 
he could not have been blind to the fact that 
good fortune rather than popular favor had been 
the means of his success, and that there smoul- 
dered a fire of resentment in " Old Greece " 
because, to attain his ends, he had depended on 
foreign troops rather than on the will of the 
Greek people. To take a conspicuous place in the 
deliberations at Paris and to employ the good- 
will of the Allies for the extension of the terri- 
torial possessions of Greece must have seemed to 
him a wise course to pursue, as there was reason 
to believe that attainment of his object would 
satisfy the national aspirations and win the favor 
of many who had opposed the abandonment of 
neutrality and who had resented his revolu- 
tionary act in forcing King Constantine to 
abandon his throne. 

The knowledge of M. Venizelos's career doubt- 
less affected the impression that he made upon 
me, although that impression was decidedly at 
variance with the sort of man whom I had ex- 
pected to meet. In spite of the fact that he had 
been in repeated revolts against constituted 
authority and had lived as an outlaw in the 

[ 150 ] 



Venizelos 

mountains of Crete, he was, as I have stated, in 
appearance, in manner, and seemingly in tem- 
perament, the opposite of a typical revolutionist, 
especially of a Greek revolutionist whom popular 
imagination pictures as a swarthy, passionate 
brigand bristling with weapons. To accept this 
mild-mannered, soft-voiced gentleman, whose 
gentle eyes looked through his gold-rimmed 
spectacles with a most benignant expression 
and whose lips curved in the kindliest of smiles, 
as the stern, inflexible revolutionist, under whose 
leadership Crete had cast off Moslem rule and 
the devotees of " New Greece " had arisen 
against the Government of Athens, seemed to 
deny the evidence of one's own senses. Thus 
facts came into direct conflict with the impres- 
sion which his personality made upon one who 
had actual intercourse with him and affected 
the impression in a peculiar way. 

The effect was to cause one to feel that the true 
Venizelos was hidden; and that his suavity, his 
modesty, his soft voice and gentleness were not 
real. The unavoidable impression was that 
beneath all this apparent simplicity and frank- 
ness there was a shrewd and clever politician, 
who, watching from the ambush of outward 

[ 157 ] 



Venizelos 

appearance the progress of the negotiations, was 
prepared to take advantage of every opportunity 
to serve the cause of " Greater Greece," of 
which he sought to be the creator as he was the 
apostle. 

It is not agreeable to admit this impression 
of the great Cretan, because it is at variance 
with the popular judgment of the nobility of his 
character and the unselfishness of his purpose. 
In spite of my liking for M. Venizelos, a liking 
which I am sure was shared by every delegate to 
the Peace Conference whose national interests 
did not clash with those of Greece, I could not 
avoid the impression that, in the endeavor to 
accomplish his aims for his nation and for his 
own political future, he was disposed to adopt 
the methods of Balkan diplomacy, in which he 
had proven himself an adept, and which are 
supposed to be by no means as scrupulous and 
free from deception as the highest standard of 
statesmanship required of a negotiator. 

Yet, in stating this impression of the character 
and personal qualities of Eleftherios Venizelos, I 
cannot deny that it is done with hesitation and 
with a measure of uncertainty. The sentimental 
and rational points of view are strangely an- 

[ 158 1 



Venizelos 

tagonistic. My impression may be wrong. It 
would be a real gratification to find that it was, 
because I would like to feel that the attractive 
personality of the Venizelos whom I knew was 
the personality of the real Venizelos, and that 
there was nothing beneath the surface, nothing 
hidden in his thought and purpose, which con- 
tradicted the openness of his manner and the 
candor of his words. It is not easy with a man of 
such personal charm to doubt his sincerity of 
conduct or to question the ideals which seemed 
to influence him. To do so is to deny the evidence 
of personal feelings, a denial which a man is 
loath to make. For that reason it has been a 
hard task to give my actual impression of the 
Greek Premier, whose career as a delegate to the 
Peace Conference was brilliant and successful 
and whose personal attainments and achieve- 
ments have won for him universal praise through- 
out the nations opposed to the Central Powers. 
While subsequent events have caused amazement 
and aroused queries as to how far M. Venizelos 
truly represented the Greek people, the impres- 
sion which I gained of him during our sojourn in 
Paris has not been materially affected, though 
his rejection in the elections of 1921 made me 

[ 159 ] 



Venizelos 

feel less doubtful of the correctness of my own 
thoughts regarding him, which I could not sup- 
press while I was in Paris or later when the 
Treaty of Sevres was being negotiated. 

In a way the personality of M. Venizelos re- 
mains an enigma which cannot be solved until 
years have passed and one can look back over the 
history of this period unaffected by the present 
chaotic state of Southeastern Europe and by the 
passions unloosed in this World War. Only with 
these events as a background can the actors 
stand out in their true perspective. To-day the 
impression is vivid, but its accuracy or inac- 
curacy will only be disclosed by time when the 
critical historian and biographer are uninfluenced 
by the little things which are so potent in the 
forming of contemporary opinions of character. 



I 160 ] 



EMIR FEISUL 

The impression made by the physical qualities of 
a man and that made by his intellectual attain- 
ments are not always easy to dissociate, nor is it 
easy to give them their relative value in the 
estimating of character. Undoubtedly a first 
impression is due to the sense of sight and is 
modified or removed only when association 
furnishes opportunity to know and measure a 
man's mentality and the spirit and motives 
which lie behind his words and thoughts. 

Physical attractions and agreeable manners 
may make a favorable impression, but this im- 
pression may vanish, if beneath the pleasing 
exterior of a man there is discovered a mind 
tainted with viciousness, weakness, or unworthy 
purpose. On the other hand, a man may be un- 
attractive or insignificant in appearance, without 
grace of manner, even uncouth, but withal the 
possessor of lofty sentiments and of intellectual 
talents which cause one to forget his physical 
defects and to see only the finer qualities of his 
nature. 

[101 ] 



Emir Feisul 

Nevertheless, the influence of visual sensations 
cannot be ignored in the attempt to analyze an 
impression of a man's personality. Those sensa- 
tions, even when denied by previous knowledge 
or by reason, are apt to persist, and to affect to a 
degree an opinion founded on more substantial 
grounds. If the impression, subsequently ac- 
quired through mental processes, confirms the 
verdict of the senses, the impression becomes 
deeper and more certain. When the physical and 
intellectual qualities seem to be entirely in har- 
mony, an observer feels that his first impression 
is a true estimate of character, an estimate which 
only the most convincing evidence can change. 

This attempt to look back to the sources of 
impressions, and to determine the standard of 
relative value to be applied to them, is induced 
by the thought of the Emir Feisul, the Prince of 
the Hedjaz. The vivid picture of this distin- 
guished Arabian that arose in my mind as I 
thought of him caused me to realize that an 
unerasable impression had been made upon me 
by his physical characteristics, his bearing and 
his dress, as well as the impression made by his 
mental qualities. From which did I gain the 
most? Did one impression modify the other? It 

[ 162 ] 




Harris & Euing, Washington, B.C. 



^& $~&J5 



EMIR FEISUL 



Emir Feisul 

was in analyzing these factors of the problem 
that I realized that, when they were not at vari- 
ance, they blended into one which was stronger 
and deeper because of this unity. 

Of the many prominent representatives of 
races, nationalities, and creeds, who gathered in 
Paris to negotiate the treaties of peace and to 
restore, as far as possible, the political and social 
order shattered by the war, there was none more 
striking in appearance than this prince from the 
Sacred City, where the mysteries of Islam were 
so long guarded from Christendom by the deserts 
of Arabia and the fanaticism of the followers of 
the Prophet. Slender and erect, seeming to be 
taller than he actually was, his flowing black 
robe and golden turban, with a richly embroid- 
ered veil falling gracefully over his shoulders 
from beneath the turban's edge, enhanced his 
calm dignity of carriage and the serious expres- 
sion which never left his face. No one could look 
at the Emir Feisul without the instinctive feeling 
that here was a man whom nature had chosen 
to be a leader of men, a man who was worthy to 
be a leader of men. 

The features of the Arab Prince were clear-cut, 
regular, and typical of his race. His hair and 

[ 163] 



Emir Feisul 

beard were black and slightly curling. His lips, 
which were partially hidden by a small mus- 
tache, were red and full, but did not indicate 
grossness or sensuality. His complexion was 
sallow and slightly mottled like the majority of 
those of pure Semitic blood. His face was thin 
and, though with few lines and wrinkles, was 
strong and earnest in expression. His dark eyes 
were serene and kindly, but one could easily 
imagine that they would flash fire under the 
excitement of conflict or the impulse of violent 
emotion. Candor and truth were in the straight- 
forward look from his eyes. He had none of that 
subtlety of expression, that ill-concealed crafti- 
ness, which is so often characteristic of the facial 
lines of the natives of Southwestern Asia. 

The movements of the Emir Feisul were al- 
ways unhurried and stately. He moved and 
spoke with deliberation and dignity. One felt 
his reserve power and his strength of character, 
while there was the feeling that he possessed a 
profundity of thought which raised him above 
the common man. He suggested the calmness 
and peace of the desert, the meditation of one 
who lives in the wide spaces of the earth, the 
solemnity of thought of one who often communes 

[ 164 ] 



Emir Feisul 

alone with nature. Everything about the Emir 
commanded respect. In him one seemed to see 
nobility of character and nobility of purpose. 
That was the impression that he made upon me 
when I first saw the picturesque chieftain of the 
Hedjaz, and that is the impression that remained 
unchanged when I came to know him better 
and to appreciate the intellectual force which 
harmonized so entirely with his physical char- 
acteristics. 

Though Prince Feisul was comparatively 
young in years, he showed a maturity of judg- 
ment and a self-restraint which one does not 
usually associate with youth, at least not with 
the youth of our Western World. In appear- 
ance and address he might have been one of the 
prophets of ancient days with his burden of 
foreknowledge and with his divinely imposed 
task to proclaim it to his fellow-men. There was 
also about him, though not out of accord with his 
prophetic type, the suggestion of the chivalry of 
the days when the wealth and culture of the 
world were gathered in the cities of Baghdad and 
Cordova, and when the Saracen Caliphs were 
the great patrons of art and learning. He 
seemed to belong to the age when Islam had 

I 105 J 



Emir Feisul 

attained the zenith of its power and magnifi- 
cence, as well as to the age of the Israelite kings. 

Yet with the dual suggestion of an ancient seer 
and a Moslem paladin this Arabian was not 
wanting in modern thought and ways. He had led 
his army of one hundred thousand men north- 
ward from Mecca and Medina, and, employing 
all the enginery and art of modern warfare, had 
cooperated successfully with the British against 
the Turkish forces. He had proven himself a 
skillful general, a strategist of no mean ability, 
and above all a master in the control of the rude 
Bedouin tribes who fought under his banner and 
to whom the discipline of modern troops was 
normally distasteful. However wild and un- 
trained the nomad bands who flocked to his 
standard, he was able to weld them into a fight- 
ing machine which was of material aid to his 
British allies in driving out of Palestine and Syria 
the veteran forces of the Ottoman Empire, whose 
excellence as soldiers has long been proverbial. 
His military record is an enviable one, and in 
dealing with civilians he exhibited the same 
forcefulness and sagacity that characterized his 
career as a martial leader. 

But the achievements of the Arab Prince were 
I 166 1 



Emir Feisul 

not due to his ability alone. The task of forming 
and directing the armies of the Hedjaz was 
shared by Colonel Thomas Lawrence, the young 
British archreologist, who, abandoning the re- 
searches in which he was engaged, became the 
chief adviser of the Emir in preparing the Arabs 
to wage war against the Ottoman Empire and 
his efficient lieutenant in the conduct of military 
operations. And yet, while Colonel Lawrence is 
entitled to a generous share in the praise for all 
that was accomplished, the fact in no way lessens 
the credit due to the Emir Feisul for the success 
of the Arab arms. It was about him, a Moslem, 
that the tribesmen gathered. It was for his sake 
that they rushed into battle against the Turks. 
He was the personification of a cause, the living 
inspiration to Arab unity and independence. 
Without him success would have been impossible. 
But success resulted from the combined efforts 
of these two talented men ; the one, the sagacious 
Moslem leader of his countrymen; the other, 
the wise British counselor and faithful friend of 
the Arabs. 

The Emir Feisul came to the Peace Conference 
with the purpose, and I believe with the expecta- 
tion, of founding an Arab kingdom extending 

[ 167 ] 



Emir Feisul 

northward from the desert wastes of the Arabian 
Peninsula to the Taurus Mountains and the 
borders of old Armenia, and from the Euphrates 
to the Mediterranean. The vast majority of the 
inhabitants of this region were of Arabian and 
Aramean stocks and with few exceptions be- 
lievers in the Koran. The capital of this new 
state was to be Damascus, the royal city of the 
ancient Kingdom of Syria, which was so power- 
ful and important in the time when Samaria was 
the capital of Israel. The Emir's desire seems to 
have been to include Palestine within the bound- 
aries of the proposed state, a not unreasonable 
desire in view of the fact that nearly nine tenths 
of the population of that territory are to-day of 
Arab blood, though I think that he could not 
have been sanguine of achieving this wish in 
view of the Zionist Movement which had re- 
ceived the unqualified support of the British 
Government. 

He presented the Arab claim and the aspira- 
tions of the Mahommedans of Syria before the 
Council of Ten of the Peace Conference. Un- 
questionably he impressed his hearers strongly 
with the soundness of his arguments and with 
the calm and judicial way in which he gave his 

[ 168 ] 



Emir Feisul 

reasons for the rebirth of Syria as an independent 
state. Without gestures and without evidence 
of emotion, yet with an earnestness which gave 
great weight to his words, the unfamiliar Arabic 
fell from his lips to be caught up by his skilled 
interpreters and converted into English and 
French phrases. The Prince spoke with solemn 
dignity, perhaps it would be more accurate to 
say with stateliness, and with an ease of utter- 
ance which denoted familiarity in addressing 
public assemblages. One longed to be able to 
understand the language which he used, for 
there is no doubt that his sentences lost much 
through translation, particularly in the vividness 
of expression where the Arabic idiom found 
no direct counterpart in the European tongues. 
But even with this handicap to a perfect sub- 
mission of his case, his manner of address and the 
tones of voice seemed to breathe the perfume 
of frankincense and to suggest the presence of 
richly colored divans, green turbans, and the 
glitter of gold and jewels. 

As the slender Arab stood before the Council 
in his flowing robe and curiously wrought head- 
dress with his fine features and serene expression, 
he looked the Oriental monarch that he aspired 

f 109 1 



Emir Feisul 

to be. One could easily imagine him to be the 
reincarnation of Haroun al Raschid, one fitted 
to be the Caliph of the new Caliphate of Damas- 
cus, who personified the union of our present 
civilization with the traditions and splendors of 
a thousand years ago. 

But the Emir Feisul met in Paris forces more 
powerful and less easy to overcome than the 
Turkish armies against which he had battled so 
successfully. There had existed for generations 
throughout the Christian world an antipathy 
toward the Mahommedan faith, which had 
found evil expression in the tyranny of Turkish 
rule and in the unspeakable atrocities perpe- 
trated by the Tartars of Asia and the fanatical 
tribesmen of the Soudan. The savagery and 
depravity of modern Islam had become intoler- 
able. The Christian nations only sought op- 
portunity to free the Christians of those regions 
from the degraded state to which they had fallen 
through centuries of Moslem oppression. The 
collapse of the Ottoman Empire offered this 
opportunity and the European delegates to the 
Paris Conference were generally determined to 
prevent a restoration of the power of the Mussul- 
man in the territories which had been subject to 

[ 170 ] 



Emir Feisul 

the sovereignty of the Sultan and a prey to the 
villainies of Turkish officials. 

This atmosphere of hostility to Moslem rule 
made the purpose of the Emir Feisul to create a 
new Kingdom of Syria — which, remember, was 
to be a new Moslem kingdom — difficult of 
accomplishment. While it was recognized that 
there was every reason to believe that there 
would be a great difference between a Turkish 
government and an Arab government, the feeling 
persisted that the teachings of the Koran, inter- 
preted as they had been by the " unspeakable 
Turk," offered little promise of toleration of 
other religions, especially of Christianity. Had 
it been a question of the revival of the Ottoman 
Empire within its old frontiers, there would 
have been no discussion. The Conference was 
emphatically opposed to such a revival. But the 
creation of a new Arab state was different. It 
was a new idea and introduced a new element 
into the problem of territorial adjustments in the 
Near East. In fact the important part played by 
the Arabs in the conflict against the Turks and 
the antagonism existing between the Kingdom of 
the Hedjaz and the Sultan's Empire offered the 
possibility of destroying the unity of the Moslem 

[ 171 ] 



Emir Feisul 

world and breaking down the movement of Pan- 
Islamism whieh was a growing menace to the 
peace of Asia. So appealing was this policy from 
a political point of view, especially when it was 
urged by Prince Feisul, whose personality won 
him friends on every hand, that it might have 
succeeded in overcoming the common sentiment 
against the erection of a Moslem-ruled Syria if 
it had not been for other forces exerted against 
its adoption. 

These other forces were less worthy than the 
desire to free the Christians of Syria and the 
Jews of Palestine from the tyranny and oppres- 
sion of Moslem governors. They were the ambi- 
tions of some of the Great Powers and the jeal- 
ousies which existed between them as to their 
respective influence and commercial advantages 
in the Near East. France, the historic champion 
of the Christians of The Lebanon, had looked 
forward to obtaining control of Syria when the 
Turkish Empire was broken up. French senti- 
ment, as well as the prospect of material benefit, 
demanded Syria; and this had been agreed to 
by Great Britain, while France had agreed that 
the British share of the spoils should be the 
rich valleys of Mesopotamia and also Palestine, 
[ 172 ] 



Emir Feisul 

the proposed national home for the Jews. The 
acceptance of the idea of an independent Syria 
under Arab sovereignty would destroy this 
agreement, and turn the coveted territories over 
to a government which might prevent the ex- 
ploitation of their resources by the powers which 
had long realized their economic possibilities. 

While the British Government might have 
listened with a friendly ear to the proposals of 
the Emir except those in conflict with the 
promises made to the Zionists concerning Pales- 
tine, the French Government was unequivocally 
opposed to Arab control. The suggestion of such 
a disposition of Syria seemed to arouse their in- 
dignation. They declared that it could not be 
for a moment considered, that the division of that 
portion of dismembered Turkey had been defi- 
nitely arranged during the progress of the war, 
and that they did not propose to compel the 
freed Christians to submit again to the fanati- 
cal oppression and cruelty of Moslem rulers. 
Though the sentimental reason of protecting 
Christians was urged with frequency and vigor, 
it was almost impossible to avoid the suspicion 
that material interests had a decided effect on 
the French position. Probably, too, the fact 

[ H3 ] 



Emir Feisul 

that the Arabs had cooperated with the British 
forces in the Near East caused the belief that 
Syria as an independent Arab state would be 
subject chiefly to British influence and open a 
field for British enterprise and investment, a 
field which the French had the anticipation of 
dominating. A possible conflict of interests, im- 
pairing a possible benefit, apparently induced 
France to repudiate the thought of a new King- 
dom of Syria. 

The emissary of the Arabian people, the 
spokesman of the Moslems, who so vastly out- 
numbered the Syrians of other creeds, could do 
nothing against these influences. He failed in his 
mission to Paris, and his failure has passed into 
history. Great Britain and France denied inde- 
pendence to the Syrian Arabs, and, when Prince 
Feisul later attempted to assume the throne of 
Syria, they compelled him by force or the menace 
of force to abandon the adventure, while they 
took over the government and nominated them- 
selves as mandatories under the League of Na- 
tions in accordance with the Sykes-Picot Agree- 
ment. 

One cannot look forward to the future of 
Syria without apprehension or without question- 
[ 174 ] 



Emir Feisul 

ing the political stability of the treaty settle- 
ments. Will the great body of Moslem Syrians 
remain satisfied and content or will they in the 
future become ardent supporters of Pan-Islam- 
ism and rise in rebellion against their Chris- 
tian rulers, delivering the scepter to the man 
who so faithfully represented them against their 
Turkish oppressors and so eloquently advocated 
Syrian independence before the Peace Confer- 
ence? Is there to be no more uncertainty, no fur- 
ther change in the sovereignty? The unbidden 
thought arises that it may not be long before war 
again sweeps across the rich valleys and barren 
wildernesses which lie between the shores of the 
Mediterranean and the banks of the Euphrates. 
The seeds of discontent and hatred have been 
sown in fertile soil; it needs but time and prepa- 
ration under the direction of a masterful and 
resourceful leader for those seeds to germinate 
and to bear the bitter fruit of conflict. 

It may seem that I have gone far afield from 
the impression made upon me by the Emir 
Feisul at Paris in setting forth the difficulties 
and discouragements which surrounded him, but 
the impression of his personality was materially 
affected by his attitude in the environment of the 

[ 175 ] 



Emir Feisul 

Peace Conference, which was so unfavorable to 
the cause which he represented. The manner of 
the man in the circumstances was so admirable 
that his dignity and poise were emphasized and 
made a deeper impression because he was striv- 
ing against irresistible forces. It was a test of 
character and of temperament which enhanced 
the high regard in which he was held by the 
delegates to the Conference. 

Prince Feisul made the impression of one who 
combined the best and finest traits of Oriental 
character. Nobility and dignity, honesty and 
candor, reserve and wisdom, were manifest in his 
conduct and words. Whatever may have been 
the merits of his claims and purposes, — and as 
to those merits there may be from the stand- 
points of principle and policy sincere differences 
of opinion, — no one who came into personal 
contact with the Arabian leader could feel aught 
but regret for him personally in the failure of 
his mission. He seemed so eminently fitted for 
success even though he was of a religion that has 
been a curse rather than a blessing in so many 
lands. One could not but wonder if Pan-Islam 
with its perils to international peace would not 
have been swept away had an independent 

[ 176 1 



Emir Feisul 

Kingdom of Syria been erected with a ruler 
hostile to the Turks and friendly, if not grate- 
ful, to the Christian Powers. With Feisul on the 
throne would not the peace of the Near East 
have been more secure and the menace of the 
Ottomans been forever ended? 

Note. — Since the foregoing " impression " was written, the 
British Government holding the mandate over Mesopotamia 
directed a tribal referendum on the selection of a king over 
that territory, with the result that Feisul was overwhelmingly 
elected. He was immediately proclaimed "King of Irak" and 
formally recognized as such by Great Britain at the city of 
Baghdad, the capital of the new Arab state. 



I 17? ] 



GENERAL BOTHA 

Another delegate to the Peace Conference who 
made a strong impression upon me was General 
Louis Botha, the Premier of the South African 
Union, who with General Jan C. Smuts repre- 
sented the united colonies in the large group of 
delegates which participated in the proceedings 
at Paris on behalf of the British Empire. Un- 
fortunately for South Africa and for the Imperial 
Government, General Botha died soon after his 
return to his country. It is deplorable that he 
was not spared to carry on the work of racial 
unity which he had so effectively championed for 
over a decade and which promises so much for 
the future prosperity of the white population of 
South Africa. 

No one could talk with General Botha without 
being immediately struck by the fact tnat his 
outstanding mental quality was practical and 
unalloyed common sense. He was not lacking in 
imagination or in ideals, — his whole public ca- 
reer denied such a lack, — but he measured his 
ideals and constructive purposes by the standard 

[ 178 1 



General Botha 

of practicability and valued them accordingly. I 
am sure that he viewed untried political theories 
with suspicion and had to be convinced that they 
could be reduced to working formulae before he 
gave to them his actual support. In fact he told 
me so. He was essentially logical and unemo- 
tional in whatever he said and whatever he did. 
The enthusiasm of the visionary made no head- 
way with him. Reason and facts were what 
appealed to him. 

His knowledge of human nature, gained 
through twenty years of conflict and in readjust- 
ment of the relations between nationalities in 
South Africa, was a great asset to him in the 
determination of the wise and politic course to 
pursue. He seemed to know what the effect of 
adopting this or that policy would be. He looked 
forward to the final judgment of men and not to 
the temporary popularity which a policy might 
gain under the stress of existing conditions or the 
passing emotions of an aroused public opinion. 
He possessed that foresight which sees the end at 
the beginning and prevents the adoption of a 
course which may be disastrous or unwise or of 
doubtful expediency. 

I think the impression that most persons 
[ 179 ] 



General Botha 

gained of General Botha on first acquaintance 
with him, unless familiar with his career, was that 
his mind worked slowly and that he was slow 
in grasping the essential features of a subject 
under discussion. It took, however, but a brief 
time to remove this impression. Any one at all 
observant soon realized that his mind was excep- 
tionally keen, though he was deliberate in form- 
ing his conclusions and cautious in giving his 
opinions to others. He thought out a problem to 
the end before he spoke; and when he did speak 
his words were carefully chosen and expressed 
his views with exactness. 

Throughout a discourse on a serious subject 
General Botha exhibited his regard for practical- 
ity. There was an entire absence of emotion and 
of levity. He was positive, but never vehement 
in speaking. He avoided sentimental appeals, 
but he did not ignore or undervalue the psycho- 
logical effect of a proposed policy upon others. 
He appreciated the importance of sentiment as 
a force in public affairs, but he never apparently 
permitted his own emotions to be so stirred 
that they interfered with his forming an opinion 
based solely upon reason. The impassioned 
eloquence of an orator did not, in my judgment, 

[ 180] 



General Botha 

swerve hini a hair's breadth from the cold logic 
of actual facts. I cannot conceive him to have 
been affected by such influences. It would have 
been contrary to his very nature. He was a poor 
"subject" for visionaries to attempt to impress 
with their hypnotic arts. 

This marked characteristic of the South Afri- 
can leader's mentality had been evinced through- 
out his public life. It had had much to do with 
his having attained so high a place among his 
countrymen and with their recognition of his 
ability. As one of the younger Boer generals — 
he was only thirty-six years old at the time of 
the South African War — he had risen from the 
ranks to be commander-in-chief of the Trans- 
vaal armies. With dauntless spirit he had led his 
sturdy compatriots against the vastly superior 
forces of the British and in the years of unequal 
conflict had shown himself a tireless and skillful 
military leader. When it became evident beyond 
question that the Boer cause was hopeless, Gen- 
eral Botha, with the common sense which char- 
acterized his acts, accepted defeat as final, and 
labored for peace even though it meant the 
surrender to the British Crown of the sovereignty 
of the Boer Republics. This was no easy or 

[ 181 ] 



General Botha 

agreeable undertaking, for he had to persuade 
the fierce old chieftain of the Orange Free State, 
General De Wet, to submit to the inevitable. 
That he succeeded was due to the cogency of 
his arguments as to the hopelessness, and, there- 
fore, the folly, of continuing the struggle against 
the superior might of the British Empire. Gen- 
eral De Wet and the crippled but indomitable 
Steyne, the President of the southern Boer Re- 
public, sullenly consented to the peace which de- 
prived their country of its national life, though 
in their retirement following the war they cher- 
ished the hope that the future would offer op- 
portunity to regain their national independence. 
General Botha, on the other hand, had a 
different vision and a different hope for South 
Africa. Realizing that it was for the interests 
of his own people to live in amity with their 
neighbors of British blood and that the restora- 
tion of Boer independence was practically im- 
possible, even if desirable, he determined to 
weld the white populations of South Africa into 
one people independent to all intents, though 
acknowledging the sovereignty of the British 
Crown. How well he and those who aided him 
in this endeavor succeeded is a fact of history. 

[ 182 ] 



General Botha 

A less broad-minded and far-seeing statesman 
than the Transvaal general would have kept 
alive a spirit of revenge among his countrymen 
and counseled passive resistance to the British 
authorities, thus making amalgamation between 
the two nationalities a long and painful process. 
That would have been a very natural course to 
take. It would have conformed with the common 
conception of patriotism and the usual sentiment 
of the vanquished toward the victors, but it 
did not conform with General Botha's views as 
to what was wise and practical. He may have 
regretted, and doubtless did regret, the outcome 
of the war, in which he had been a prominent 
military figure, but he did not permit vain re- 
grets or false hopes to cloud his vision as to the 
future or to impair his sound common sense in 
dealing with new conditions resulting from the 
British victory. He knew that the South Afri- 
can Republic and the Orange Free State could 
never regain their independence. He accepted 
the fact of defeat with philosophic calmness 
and exerted all his influence as a popular com- 
mander in reconciling his fellow-countrymen to 
their new allegiance. 

His efforts did not cease with inducing the 
f 183 1 



General Botha 

majority of the Boers to adjust themselves to 
the idea of British rule, for in seeking the welfare 
of the inhabitants of the conquered republics 
he began at once the movement for union of all 
the South African colonies into a self-governing 
dominion of the British Empire. In this he was 
aided by the statesmen of Great Britain, who 
realized the tremendous advantage to be gained 
by a political union creating common interests 
and making possible common action by the 
white race in South Africa. The successful 
organization of the Union was largely due to 
General Botha, and his elevation to the premier- 
ship was a recognition of his wise statesmanship. 
He was engaged in breaking down the last 
barriers of hostile feeling between the two na- 
tionalities, and in working out an ambitious 
programme of development and expansion for 
the Union, when the European War broke out. 
The situation put to the test his loyalty and 
wisdom and the strength of the unity for which 
he had labored. The military demands upon 
Great Britain in Belgium and Northern France 
and the presence of German troops in Southwest 
Africa seemed to offer a favorable opportunity 
to the unreconciled Boers to recover their in- 

[ 184 ] 



General Botha 

dependence and possibly to occupy Cape Colony 
and Natal. A less sagacious statesman than 
General Botha, and one less appreciative of the 
great issues at stake in the war, would, in the 
circumstances, have raised the standard of revolt 
against British rule. But the Boer Premier never 
hesitated in his decision or faltered in his alle- 
giance. He preferred a course which did not 
violate his sense of honor and which did not 
endanger the political liberty and equal justice 
enjoyed by all South Africans as British subjects, 
irrespective of their nationality. He not only 
supported with his voice the cause of the battling 
Allies, but he informed the London Government 
that they might withdraw for service in Europe 
the troops stationed in South Africa, assuring 
them that the Colonial Government would be 
responsible for the loyalty and defense of the 
territory. The confidence reposed in the in- 
tegrity of the Boer leader by the British Govern- 
ment was shown by the advantage which was 
immediately taken of this offer. The British 
garrisons embarked for England. 

In spite of the fine spirit shown by General 
Botha in this crisis, there were many among the 
Boers who had continued to cherish a feeling 

[ 185 ] 



General Botha 

of hatred toward the British and to dream of a 
return to their former state of independence. To 
this dissatisfied group the occupied energies of 
the Empire in the Kfe-and-death struggle in 
Flanders offered a temptation to cast off their 
enforced allegiance. As a consequence of this 
spirit and these conditions, an insurrection broke 
out in the United Colonies, the insurrectionists 
undertaking to seize the local governments at 
various points. The colonial forces, which 
General Botha had organized, were sent against 
the rebels, and they were, with little bloodshed, 
overcome and dispersed. At the head of the 
movement was the veteran commander-in-chief 
of the Orange Free State, General De Wet, who 
had never favored the Botha policy of union and 
who was an inveterate hater of the British. His 
capture in the deserts of Bechuanaland by loyal 
troops brought the rebellion to an end, while the 
amnesty granted the rebels prevented them from 
becoming martyrs in the eyes of their country- 
men and destroyed the possibility of a revival of 
the movement for independence. 

As soon as the rebels at home had been sup- 
pressed, General Botha led his colonial forces into 
German Southwest Africa overcoming the garri- 

[ 186 ] 



General Botha 

sons in that territory and raising over the colony 
the Union Jack of the British Empire in place of 
the Black Eagle of Prussia. 

General Jan C. Smuts saw the situation as 
General Botha saw it. He was the latter's 
faithful lieutenant in the field as he had been in 
the movement for union and in the political 
administration of the country. It was the sound 
judgment and prompt action of these two Boer 
statesmen and generals which saved South 
Africa from a civil war which would have caused 
much suffering and loss to the colonists and re- 
awakened all the antipathy and bitterness be- 
tween the nationalities which had been rapidly 
disappearing under the leadership of Louis 
Botha. But their statesmanship went further 
than that. They looked beyond the boundaries 
and coasts of South Africa, and without hesita- 
tion showed that they preferred to stand side 
by side with the men who, but a few years before, 
had conquered them and annexed their country, 
but had given them political liberty, rather than 
to stand against them and support the Prussians 
in their designs of world empire. It was a big- 
hearted, a large-minded, a noble decision. It is 
an example of the highest type of statesmanship. 

[ 187 1 



General Botha 

It makes famous the names of Louis Botha and 
Jan C. Smuts in the annals of the World War. 
The conduct of these two great Boers in this 
critical time should not be forgotten when we 
recall the acts which excite our admiration and 
praise and which are worthy to be remembered 
by posterity. How eminently proper it was that 
they should represent South Africa at Paris. 

Both General Botha and General Smuts im- 
pressed me as belonging to the class of men 
popularly termed " sound and substantial." 
There was a simplicity of manner, an absence of 
affectation, a frankness of speech, an intellectual 
honesty about them, that appealed strongly to 
one who came in contact with them. You 
trusted them because you knew instinctively 
that they were worthy of your trust. They 
seemed to lack the art of dissimulation, so that 
they were distinguished from the many adepts in 
that art to be found among the delegates to the 
Peace Conference. They spoke their minds 
freely without attempting to soften the truth or 
to make it more palatable, and yet their attitude 
was one of kindliness and consideration. General 
Botha — and I am disposed to add General 
Smuts, though with less certainty — belonged to 

[ 188 ] 



General Botha 

the type of public men who develop under the 
plain conditions of pioneer life and the constant 
struggle against primitive nature. It is a fine 
type; in many ways the finest type. To that 
type belonged Abraham Lincoln. 

While I have considered General Botha and 
General Smuts together, because their public 
lives were to an extent formed by the same 
experience and consequently possessed many 
characteristics in common, they were by no 
means identical in certain of their attributes and 
attainments. General Smuts, educated at one of 
the great English universities, was undoubtedly 
more cultured, and possessed a more far-reaching 
imagination than his great leader. Some would 
possibly say that he had a wider vision. I prefer 
to call it imagination. He worked out, prior to 
the assembling of the Peace Conference, a plan 
for a League of Nations which became the basis 
of the plan adopted in the Treaty of Versailles. 
This plan furnishes an excellent example of his 
mental caliber as a constructive political thinker. 

I do not believe that General Botha, with his 

high regard for practicality and his unwillingness 

to adopt a political theory which had not been 

tested by actual application, would have pre- 

[ 189 ] 



General Botha 

sented a plan like that proposed by General 
Smuts. He possessed foresight rather than an 
adventurous imagination. He had his ideals, 
but he was not an idealist. He had vision, but he 
was not a visionary. It is hard to explain just 
the distinction that I would convey between his 
mentality and that of his colleague. Perhaps it 
may be stated to be the difference between a 
theory which is certainly practicable and a theory 
which is possibly practicable. Perhaps it can be 
expressed by the difference between the assertion 
that two and two make four if past experience 
applies, and the assertion that two and two may, 
if an unusual theory is accepted, make five. In 
any event, the attempt to define the distinction 
between the intellectual processes of these two 
men involves a subtlety of thought which is 
difficult to put into exact terms. 

In comparing the impressions made upon me 
by the two Boer statesmen, I realize that that 
made by General Botha was much more posi- 
tive and much stronger than that made by 
General Smuts. While this was due in no small 
degree to the fact that I saw General Botha fre- 
quently and had little intercourse with General 
Smuts, I think that it was influenced by the 

[ 190 1 



General Botha 

belief that General Botha's character seemed to 
me the stronger of the two. He did not have the 
vivacity of mind which comes with a restless 
imagination. He kept his feet on the ground and 
dealt with certainties rather than with possi- 
bilities. He did not stumble because he was not 
constantly gazing at the stars. Some would have 
called him commonplace. Doubtless many did 
call him so in thought if not in word. I think 
that those who so judged him mistook the com- 
monplace for a plainness born of common sense. 

From his experience of men and things and 
from his discerning knowledge of that undefin- 
able but all-pervading quality which we term 
human nature, General Botha obtained his con- 
clusions, and on these conclusions he built his 
judgments or by them guided his course of ac- 
tion. His sentiments never diverted the current 
of his reason. It was a steady, uninterrupted flow 
which was well-nigh irresistible. His logic was 
cold, exact, and unemotional. The soundness 
and clarity of his thought carried conviction. 

An example of the way in which General 
Botha's practical common sense dominated his 
feelings was furnished by his attitude toward the 
articles in the Treaty of Versailles providing for 

[191 ] 



General Botha 

the political trial of the former German Emperor 
and his officers upon charges of responsibility for 
beginning the war and for the atrocious and in- 
human acts perpetrated by the German soldiery 
during the invasion of Belgium and France. 
Though he frankly stated his loathing for these 
men and his indignation at the abominable 
wrongs committed by their orders or with their 
apparent approval, he strongly opposed their 
punishment by the Allies, because he was con- 
vinced that, if they were punished, the German 
people would canonize them as national martyrs 
and cherish in their hearts a spirit of hatred and 
revenge toward their judges which would ulti- 
mately bring about another war. The astute 
South African statesman, who knew from per- 
sonal experience the spirit and temper of a van- 
quished people, was willing and in fact intensely 
anxious to abandon the infliction of just penalties 
on these violators of international peace and the 
laws of humanity, because he knew that aban- 
donment of punishments would make the peace 
more enduring by removing the incentive to 
retaliate. So strongly was he convinced of this 
course that he said to me one day, when we were 
lunching together, that his conscience and reason 

[ 192 ] 



General Botha 

told him not to sign the treaty, which had then 
been delivered to the German delegates, unless 
the articles providing for penalties were ex- 
punged. For a long time he remained, to my 
knowledge, uncertain as to his duty, and he de- 
termined to affix his signature to the document 
only when he was convinced that his refusal 
might produce a greater evil by delaying the 
restoration of peace and by encouraging the 
radical elements in the Central Empires to at- 
tempt to seize the governments at Berlin and 
Vienna. He was not alone in being compelled by 
the logic of the situation, which made Bolshe- 
vism a very real peril, to subordinate his personal 
convictions and inclinations and to make choice 
between two evils. 

In this rational attitude toward the danger of 
perpetuating hatreds and resentments by the 
terms of peace, General Botha was closely fol- 
lowed by General Smuts, but I believe that this 
sane view of the policy which ought to be adopted 
originated with General Botha. The private 
conversations which I had with him, concerning 
the subject of punishing individuals, showed an 
earnest opposition to such a course, even before 
the insistence of Mr. Lloyd George, for political 

[ 193 1 



General Botha 

reasons, and of the French, out of a very natu- 
ral spirit of retaliation, had forced the articles 
on penalties to be written into the Treaty of 
Versailles. 

Physically General Botha was a large, strongly 
built man, with a tendency toward heaviness 
which made him rather slow and clumsy in his 
movements. He had a decidedly Dutch cast of 
countenance with roundness of face, high cheek- 
bones, and few wrinkles. His hair, mustache, 
and imperial were dark, as were his eyes. His 
mouth was wide with thick lips. His teeth, which 
were neither white nor even, were large and very 
much in evidence when he smiled or talked. His 
simplicity of dress and manner was conspicuous. 
In conversation he always spoke in a straight- 
forward way with little emphasis. There was 
nothing in his voice which distinguished it from 
that of the average man. He used a simple vo- 
cabulary and used it well, speaking, however, 
with a slight accent. He possessed humor rather 
than wit. He was an excellent talker, having a 
fund of anecdotes of South African life and 
personal experiences which he related in an 
entertaining manner. When he ventured to 
speculate on the future and its problems, his 

[ 194 ] 



General Botha 

listener could not but feel that his foundation 
was laid in facts and that he based his deductions 
on sound premises. There was a practicality 
about his utterances, an avoidance of extremes, 
and an accuracy of reasoning which made his 
deductions of unusual value. 

Louis Botha impressed me as a soldier who 
hated war and abhorred militarism, and as a 
statesman without vanity or personal ambition, 
whose principal characteristics were honesty of 
purpose, unaffected simplicity of manner, and 
candor of address. For him to engage in intrigue 
or to act unjustly was unthinkable. His patri- 
otism was not of the emotional type which acted 
on impulse and bubbled over with uncontrolled 
enthusiasm. It was deeper and more earnest and 
more useful to his country than the frothy type, 
for it was founded on an abiding faith in his 
fellow-men and in a love of humanity which 
tempered justice with mercy and a sense of 
personal wrong with a spirit of forgiveness. His 
long and active public career with its record of 
achievement is ample justification for any en- 
comium that may be paid to his memory. 
Through his death the Union of South Africa lost 
its greatest statesman and the British Empire 

[ 195 1 



General Botha 

one of its wisest counselors and most loyal leaders 
at a time when his cool and sober judgment were 
especially needed, and when the universal con- 
fidence and respect in which he was held by his 
people would have exerted a powerful influence 
in bringing into complete unity the two nation- 
alities in South Africa, to accomplish which had 
been the ambition of his life, the hope that had 
inspired his public service. 



[ 196 1 



PADEREWSKI 

Among the statesmen who assembled in Paris in 
December, 1918, to formulate the terms of peace 
to be imposed on the defeated Powers of Central 
Europe, Ignace Jan Paderewski, the Minister for 
Foreign Affairs and the Premier of the new-born 
Republic of Poland, was a notable figure, not 
only because of his personality, but because he 
represented a country which, through its fortitude 
and faith in spite of the inconceivable agonies 
which its people endured during the war, had 
won back its national life and independence torn 
from it over a hundred years ago by the greed 
and jealousies of the two Central Powers and 
Russia. The partition of the ancient Kingdom of 
Poland, which had been so powerful in Eastern 
Europe during the seventeenth century, but 
which had been weakened by internal dissensions 
and by the foreign intrigues of its political fac- 
tions, is a dark page in the history of modern 
civilization. The dismemberment of so large and 
populous a territory possessing solidarity in race, 
language, and religion, such as Poland possessed, 
was an international crime which hardly finds a 

[ 197 1 



Paderewski 

parallel in the annals of the past four hundred 
years. 

In spite, however, of the submergence of the 
Poles as a nation for a century and the persistent 
efforts of their conquerors to break their spirit of 
national entity, they transmitted from genera- 
tion to generation the hope that they would 
again be a sovereign people, and that the broken 
pieces of their country would be reunited so that 
Poland might again take her place as a member 
of the family of nations. With this hope a living 
force in binding the Polish people together, they 
tenaciously clung to their language, their creed, 
their traditions, and above all to their hatred of 
the domination of those who had deprived them 
of their national existence. 

The result of the World War made possible 
the realization of this constant hope. The oppor- 
tunity had come to consummate it. With this 
supreme end in view, Poland sent to Paris 
Ignace Paderewski and Roman Dmowski to 
negotiate the terms to be incorporated in the 
peace treaties and in a treaty of Poland with 
the principal Powers. Their task, in spite of 
the sympathetic attitude of the Allies and the 
United States, was not an easy one. There were 
[ 198 1 




C_£^" 



Paderewski 

very difficult problems to be solved in the de- 
limitation of the frontiers of Poland, for her 
territory, while she was an independent state, 
had been a variable quantity, since her borders 
had fluctuated with the triumph or failure of her 
arms in the wars in which the Poles were almost 
incessantly engaged during the sixteenth, seven- 
teenth, and eighteenth centuries. At what period 
in Polish history did the boundaries enclose Po- 
land proper? What ethnic and economic con- 
siderations must enter into the determination of 
the new boundaries? These were questions, the 
answers to which were vital, not only to the 
future of Poland, but also to the future peace of 
Eastern Europe and to the stability of the settle- 
ments under the treaties. In formulating these 
answers Mr. Paderewski took a leading part, and, 
though naturally prejudiced in favor of extending 
Polish sovereignty to the limit of her historic 
possessions, he was not unmindful of the great 
underlying idea that the new Poland must be a 
state possible of military defense as well as of an 
independent economic life. 

In looking back over the years of the war and 
the months succeeding the signing of the armi- 
stice on November 11, 1918, I realize that I had 

I 199 ] 



Paderewski 

two distinct, and to an extent contradictory, 
impressions made upon me by Mr. Paderewski. 
The first impression was that which I gained in 
the United States while the war was in progress, 
an impression which was superseded and sub- 
stantially extinguished by a later impression 
which resulted from a more intimate acquaint- 
ance with the Polish statesman and which was 
confirmed by his record at Warsaw and at Paris. 

My original impression was not one of a 
complimentary nature in view of the task which 
he had undertaken in behalf of his country. It 
was due undoubtedly to the fact that he was a 
great pianist, the greatest, I believe, of his 
generation. I felt that his artistic temperament, 
his passionate devotion to music, his intense 
emotions, and his reputed eccentricities indicated 
a lack of the qualities of mind which made it 
possible for him to deal with the intricate po- 
litical problems which it would be necessary to 
solve in the restoration of Polish independence 
and the revival of Polish sovereignty. 

When the famous musician came to see me in 
my office at the Department of State, as he did 
on many occasions after the United States had 
entered the war, for the purpose of pleading the 

[ 200 ] 



Paderewski 

cause of his country and of obtaining consent to 
the recruiting of a Polish army in the United 
States, I could not avoid the thought that his 
emotions were leading him into a path which he 
was wholly unsuited to follow. With his long 
flaxen hair sprinkled with gray and brushed back 
like a mane from his broad white forehead, with 
his extremely low collar and dangling black 
necktie accentuating the length of his neck, with 
his peculiarly narrow eyes and his small mus- 
tache and goatee that looked so foreign, he ap- 
peared to be a man absorbed in the aesthetic 
things of life rather than in practical world 
politics. My feeling was that I had to deal with 
one given over to extravagant ideals, to the 
visions and fantasies of a person controlled by 
his emotional impulses rather than by his reason 
and the actualities of life. I was impressed by 
his fervid patriotism, and by his intense devotion 
to the cause of Poland, but it was not unnatural 
to think that so temperamental a nature would 
be swayed by sentimentality in the advocacy of 
a course of action and would give passionate 
support to his ideas with little regard to logic 
or practical considerations. 

Holding this impression of Mr. Paderewski, an 
[ 201 ] 



Paderewski 

impression which I believe was shared by many 
of those with whom he came in contact in those 
early days of his active work for his country, I 
confess that I was not disposed to give the weight 
to his opinions that I did later. I liked him 
personally. I was glad to see him enter my office, 
for I always found pleasure in talking with him. 
I admired the intensity of his advocacy of 
Polish independence and the patriotism which 
had induced him to abandon his musical career 
so that he might devote his life to the cause of 
his country. His cordiality of manner and ad- 
dress was very attractive. He was a likable, I 
think I may say a lovable man in every sense of 
the term. Yet at the time of which I am speaking 
there was the ever-present sense that he lived 
in the realm of musical harmonies and that he 
could not come down to material things and 
grapple with the hard facts of life. It seemed as 
if he could not realize the difficulties of the part 
which he had chosen to play in the tragical drama 
of world affairs. In truth, I thought that he was 
making a mistake. 

This was my early impression of Mr. Paderew- 
ski. It was only with time and with a fuller 
knowledge of the man that I learned how wrong 

[ 202 ] 



Paderewski 

this impression was and how completely I had 
failed to estimate correctly his attainments and 
his real mental strength. The new impression, 
which I feel is the true one, did not at once sup- 
plant the old. It came by degrees and only over- 
came the first impression by observation of facts 
which could not be successfully questioned or 
denied. Possibly it is erroneous to term this 
later view an impression, as it is based on 
substantial evidence. It may be more exact to 
term it a conviction. 

That the change was not more immediate and 
did not earlier remove my first impression was 
due, I think, in no small measure to a mental 
attitude common to the majority of men in 
judging personality, and that is the attitude 
caused by the strength and tenacity of a first 
impression even when it has little substance in 
fact on which to rest. The psychology of favor- 
able and unfavorable estimates of capacity, and 
of the relative value of apparent contradictions 
in traits of character, has to do very much with 
first impressions and with the receptivity of the 
mind of the observer. In studying these I be- 
lieve that it will be found to be a rule with few 
exceptions that first impressions acquired on cas- 

[ 203 ] 



Paderewski 

u al acquaintance sink deep into the mind and 
are not easy to change or eradicate. 

I found, at least, that this was true in the case 
of Mr. Paderewski. For a musician of his genius, 
which necessarily implied a nature sensitive and 
responsive to emotional influences and to the 
aesthetic beauties of art, to be transformed, as 
it were overnight, into a cool, hard-headed states- 
man dealing wisely with rough and ugly facts, 
seemed to deny all common experience. It was 
hard to believe that such a complete change 
of thought and object in life was real. But, as 
the Polish hope of independence developed into 
a certainty, and as Mr. Paderewski became more 
and more prominent in moulding the policies 
and directing the activities of the Polish organ- 
izations in this and other countries, I was com- 
pelled hesitatingly but very gladly to revise my 
judgment and recognize that my first impression 
was wrong; I think that I may say that it was 
unjust, though excusable. 

My second impression — and it is the im- 
pression that I still hold — was that Ignace 
Paderewski was a greater statesman than he was 
a musician, that he was an able and tactful 
leader of his countrymen and a sagacious dip- 
[ 204 J 



Paderewski 

lomat, and that his emotional temperament, 
while it intensified his patriotic zeal and his 
spirit of self-sacrifice, never controlled or ad- 
versely affected the soundness of his judgment or 
his practical point of view. 

The first direct evidence of his capacity as 
a leader which impressed me was his successful 
effort to unite the jealous and bickering Polish 
factions in the United States and to obtain their 
common acceptance of the authority of the 
National Polish Council in Paris. Others had 
attempted the task and failed. Factionalism had 
been the vice and weakness of the old Kingdom 
of Poland. With the brightening hope of a Polish 
republic this national evil seemed to revive. I 
am convinced that Mr. Paderewski was the only 
Pole who could have overcome this menace to 
the cause of Poland, a menace since it seriously 
impaired the possibility of the recognition of 
the National Council at Paris by the Allies. His 
powers of persuasion, which seemed to spring at 
once into being with his entry upon a political 
career, his enthusiastic confidence in the resur- 
rection of Poland as an independent state, and 
his entire freedom from personal ambition marie 
him the one man about whom the Poles, regard- 
[ 205 J 



Paderewski 

less of faction, appeared to be willing to rally. It 
was a great achievement, a triumph of person- 
ality, a tribute to, as well as an evidence of, the 
faith of a people in the unselfish patriotism of a 
national leader, which they confirmed later by 
choosing him to be the premier of the new gov- 
ernment. What others, certainly more experi- 
enced than he in public affairs and credited with 
greater political shrewdness, failed to accomplish, 
Mr. Paderewski accomplished. His success in 
thus harmonizing the Polish factions gave him at 
once a preeminence in the councils of his nation 
which other governments were quick to perceive 
and to respect. 

From the time that Mr. Paderewski assumed 
a commanding position in the affairs of Poland 
my early impression of him began to change. I 
realized that I had failed to appreciate his innate 
genius for political leadership which proved to 
be so effective in circumstances that would have 
tried the sagacity of a man long in public life. 
Raw amateur though he was in politics — and I 
mean no disrespect in so characterizing him — 
nearly everything that he said and nearly every- 
thing that he did seemed to be the right thing. 
lie made few mistakes and he never seemed to 

[ 20G J 



Paderewski 

be in doubt as to the course which he should 
take. He was wonderfully resourceful and ap- 
parently had an instinctive sense of the possible 
and the practicable. He held his imagination in 
leash as he did his emotions. He was not carried 
away with extravagant hopes or unrealizable 
dreams. His views were essentially sane and 
logical. 

If I had needed further proofs to induce me to 
revise my impression of the Polish leader who 
had done so much for his country in connection 
with the Polish movement in the United States, 
where his patriotic fervor was a constant in- 
spiration to his countrymen, his subsequent 
conduct in Warsaw and Paris would have been 
all-sufficient for that purpose. Without change 
in the simplicity and frankness of his nature or 
in his unaffected geniality, he showed a poise of 
character in dealing with subjects vital to the 
future of Poland, a conservative judgment, and 
a calm and unexcitable manner of discussing 
matters of difference, which gave weight to his 
words and added greatly to his influence as a 
negotiator. 

The highly developed artistic nature of Mr. 
Paderewski seemed to be a very weak foundation 
[ 207 ] 



Paderewski 

on which to build the career of a statesman. It 
appeared incongruous, almost fantastic, to con- 
sider it as a possibility. One faced with the 
amazing fact would, not without reason, declare 
it to be impossible for a man, whose years up to 
middle age had been devoted to the developing 
and perfecting of his ability as a musician, to be- 
come without other preparation a public official 
who could effectively take part in the affairs of 
state. That was, I know, a common judgment 
concerning Mr. Paderewski's sudden entrance 
into public life. It was declared openly and 
frequently. But the judgment was wrong. He 
abandoned his music, which had been his very 
life, and threw himself into the work of politics 
with the same ardor and devotion that he had 
shown in following the impulses of his incompar- 
able genius. As thousands had applauded his 
mastery of harmony, so thousands came to ap- 
plaud the intensity of his patriotism and the 
sacrificial spirit with which he laid down his 
beloved music for the cause of his country. 

How fitting it was that Mr. Paderewski should 
be the one to sign, in behalf of Poland, the treaty 
that broke the shackles which she had worn so 
long and which proclaimed to all the world that 

[ 208 ] 



Paderewski 

Polish independence was an accomplished fact. 
Imagine, if you can, the thoughts and emotions 
of the eminent Pole as he advanced to the table 
in the center of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles 
and affixed his signature to the document that 
bore witness to the triumph of the cause to which 
he had given his all. The 28th of June, 1919, was 
a great day to the delegates of the assembled 
nations, but it was the greatest in the life of 
Ignace Paderewski. 

What Mr. Paderewski has done for Poland 
will cause eternal gratitude. What he gave up 
for Poland will cause widespread regret. His re- 
sponse to the cry of his country suffering in the 
throes of its rebirth is one of the finest examples 
of true patriotism that an historian has ever had 
the privilege to chronicle. His career is one which 
deserves to be remembered not only by his coun- 
trymen, for whom he did so much, but by every 
man, to whom love of country and loyalty to a 
great cause stand forth as the noblest attributes 
of human character. 

As I review in my mind all the circumstances, 
I think that it was natural that my first impres- 
sion of Mr. Paderewski was that which I have 
attempted to describe and that this impression 

[ 209 J 



Paderewski 

faded and disappeared as time and events dis- 
closed, in place of Paderewski the great artist, 
Paderewski the great statesman of Poland. It is 
this second impression that lives. The first is an 
almost forgotten memory. I can to-day think of 
Mr. Paderewski only as the zealous advocate of 
Polish independence, as the sagacious statesman, 
as the tactful negotiator, and as the unselfish 
public servant who sought only the welfare of his 
country and of its people. It is a fortunate nation, 
indeed, which can claim such a man among its 
sons, and he is a fortunate man who can leave to 
posterity such a memory of generous service. 

In giving one's impressions of a personality 
such as I have endeavored to portray, it is 
difficult not to speak in superlatives. Every- 
thing about Mr. Paderewski and his career 
invites the superlative form of expression. The 
beauty of his character, the fineness of his 
sentiments, the loftiness of his ideals, and the 
sensitiveness and modesty of his nature, con- 
stitute the highest impulses that control human 
conduct. A man possessing these qualities — 
and Mr. Paderewski has shown that he possesses 
them — exercises a deep influence on his fellow- 
men, deeper than he himself can ever realize. 

[ 210 ] 



Paderewski 

Though this recitation of Mr. Paderewski'g 
characteristics may seem to some to give him too 
fulsome praise and to exaggerate his virtues and 
attainments, I would not be candidly expressing 
my views if I said less. His personality through 
intimate association excited a sympathetic in- 
terest which, it is fair to presume, gave color to 
the impression that it made on my mind. That 
may be and, I believe, ought to be admitted. 
But in spite of the favorable interest thus created 
I do not think that it affected the estimate of Mr. 
Paderewski's character by unduly magnifying 
his talents and achievements or by minimizing 
his faults and failures. An unjustifiable impres- 
sion, as a rule, grows weaker through continued 
intercourse with a man and through a fuller 
knowledge of his intellectuality and his spiritual 
nature. There was no such experience in the 
case of the later impression made upon me by 
this Polish leader. It did not grow weaker; it 
grew stronger as events justified it and as ac- 
quaintance gave me a clearer insight into his 
motives and aims. 

In addition to the attraction of his personality 
there was an increasing admiration and respect 
for the man as a leader of public thought and as 

[211 1 



Paderewski 

a diplomat who would not resort to deceit or 
intrigue in seeking to obtain his ends, however 
laudable those ends might be or however strong 
the temptation to use any means to attain them. 
Honesty of means as well as honesty of purpose 
was evident in his conduct as a negotiator. If he 
misstated a fact, one felt instinctively that it was 
the result of incomplete knowledge or erroneous 
information, and was not an intentional sup- 
pression or perversion of the truth. Confidence 
in his integrity was the natural consequence of ac- 
quaintance and intercourse with Mr. Paderewski, 
and it was the universality of this confidence 
that made him so influential with the delegates 
to the Peace Conference. 

What I have written is the impression which 
the Prime Minister of the Polish Republic made 
upon me during our association at Paris and the 
way that that impression grew and developed in 
spite of views based on preconceived ideas of his 
capacity and talents. It has not been as difficult 
to analyze this change of thought as it has been 
to account for the radical change in the life and 
activities of Ignace Jan Paderewski himself. S 



< 



unnatural a conversion of aesthetic genius into 
a genius for statecraft without going through a 

[ 212 1 



,JUN 



15 \^5 



Paderewski 

gradual process of transformation seems to be an 
anomaly which defies a satisfactory explanation. 
That it took place is a fact, an extraordinary 
fact, that must be accepted for the simple reason 
that it is fact. In history as in memory the?e 
will always live two Paderewskis, Paderewski 
the master of music, and Paderewski the states- 
man of Poland. 



TEE END 



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